Question for the older forum members

[TrickyTart]

It's only half an hour in, but Barcelona are tearing apart a pretty good Arsenal team. I'm curious how our great team of 1980 or so would get on against them, which players of ours could hurt them or stop them, or how BC would have set us up. I know footie has changed etc etc just curious

 

[westyorksnffc]

We beat them 2-1 on aggregate in the Super Cup in 1980, that should answer your question!

 

[alabamared]

The game has changed such a lot in the past 30 years. Players are a lot more athletic now not better just fitter.
I think the defence we had in those days would have a lot of trouble with modern referees. But they were very skilfull and would probably have found away.
In actual fact I think the second great side of the late eighties would probably have faired better in the modern game.
I don't have the beneifit of being able to see tonights game.

 

[Rich]

I think our side under Clark would have given Barcelona a good game, but their athleticism would have sunk us.

Collymore would have been deadly against sides like this, though.

 

[Anatoli]

The classic side - Shilton, Anderson, Clark, Lloyd, Burns, McGovern, O Neill, Robertson, Gemill, Withe, Woodcock - there are several varities of this - weren't the fittest athletes in the world but they played fantastic football and were nigh on impossible to beat. It still makes no sense how quickly that team was broken up.

 

[Tutts]

it's always one of those things which is so tricky to say. Can you imagine if John Robertson had been put through the sort of intensive fitness training and diets they have today? He could easily have been as good as these Barca players.

Whether Lloyd & Burns would have been as good without the ability to be a physical with centre forwards as they were back then, we'll never know.

Agree with Rich though that, seeing the problems Barca have had with Theo Walcotts pace since he came on, Collymore would have scared them.

 

[alabamared]

The classic side - Shilton, Anderson, Clark, Lloyd, Burns, McGovern, O Neill, Robertson, Gemill, Withe, Woodcock - there are several varities of this - weren't the fittest athletes in the world but they played fantastic football and were nigh on impossible to beat. It still makes no sense how quickly that team was broken up.

I think it went stale. If you look at what happened against CSK particularly there were just some elements of the team that were past thier sell by date.

We failed to freshen up the team in time to carry on it's greatness; at that time the best players in England would have come to us.

I do agree there were some strange sales especially the likes of Francis and Shilton.

 

[yam]

If the rules were on a like for like basis i.e. Barcelona had to play to 1980's rules our "legends" might have stood more of a chance.

Under modern rules and with the more athletic players I'd have to say Barcelona.

To be honest its a bit like comparing the 1959 FA cup team with the European Cup winning side.

 

[yam]

I think it went stale. If you look at what happened against CSK particularly there were just some elements of the team that were past thier sell by date.

We failed to freshen up the team in time to carry on it's greatness; at that time the best players in England would have come to us.

I do agree there were some strange sales especially the likes of Francis and Shilton.

Didn't Shilts move not long after the "Tina-gate" incident round the back of the racecourse?

 

[RedMark]

Collymore would have been deadly against sides like this, though.

Agree with Rich though that, seeing the problems Barca have had with Theo Walcotts pace since he came on, Collymore would have scared them.

As much as I liked him as a player I feel annoyed with Collymores career.

Here you have a player who was tall, strong, fast, good left foot, good right foot and could score with his head, why do I feel short changed with his career ?
He should have done more for England, this guy should have been smashing teams and although he did it for us and the Scousers he never did it at international level, with Stanley in the team Euro '96 could have been ours.

 

[TheDude]

We beat them 2-1 on aggregate in the Super Cup in 1980, that should answer your question!

was it not 1979 ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_European_Super_Cup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_European_Super_Cup

 

[Rich]

As much as I liked him as a player I feel annoyed with Collymores career.

Here you have a player who was tall, strong, fast, good left foot, good right foot and could score with his head, why do I feel short changed with his career ?
He should have done more for England, this guy should have been smashing teams and although he did it for us and the Scousers he never did it at international level, with Stanley in the team Euro '96 could have been ours.

He was well dealt with at Forest. When he went to Liverpool he became part of the 'Spice Boy' generation and his head never recovered.

If he'd gone to Man Utd he would have played his career out under Ferguson and won countless medals.

 

[Erik]

Football has changed so much since those days.

However, had fitness levels been the same and the game played under the rules of the early 80's my money would have been on Forest simply because we were so difficult to score against and always likely to be able to get one ourselves.

Burns would have scares Messi s***less! lol

 

[Daniel]

less of the 'older' please lol although I was not quite old enough, on a level playing field with old school rules Lloyd would've had messi on the floor squirming like a girl.

 

[RedMark]

He was well dealt with at Forest. When he went to Liverpool he became part of the 'Spice Boy' generation and his head never recovered.

If he'd gone to Man Utd he would have played his career out under Ferguson and won countless medals.

True, he was what, 24 / 25 when he left us ? The perfect age to move to a bigger place and absorb everything a top draw manager can teach you, but also the age to go off the rails if it goes to your head.

Even going to Arsenal when Wenger started I wouldn't have minded, I honestly beliveve that if he kept on the rails he would have improved England so much in Euro '96 and the World Cup in France '98.

 

[alabamared]

Didn't Shilts move not long after the "Tina-gate" incident round the back of the racecourse?

Not really it might have had more to do with Frank Grey's wife(alledgedly)!

"Tina-gate"? Trust me her name wasn't Tina.

 

[Chets Left Peg]

As much as I liked him as a player I feel annoyed with Collymores career.

Here you have a player who was tall, strong, fast, good left foot, good right foot and could score with his head, why do I feel short changed with his career ?
He should have done more for England, this guy should have been smashing teams and although he did it for us and the Scousers he never did it at international level, with Stanley in the team Euro '96 could have been ours.

Stan was unfortunate to be playing at a time when England had a lot of very good strikers at international level, Fowler, Ferdinand, Cole, Sheringham and Shearer to name a handful. We'd kill for any one of those players at their peak now.

If Stan was playing in his prime now he'd be one of the first names in the England squad, nowadays we're calling on the likes of Carlton Cole and Emile Heskey.

It was also unfortunate that he needed an arm round his shoulder that he didn't always get. Sadly the margins between good and great are very slender.

 

[Strummer]

You can say the fitness of players has indeed improved, but that is down to science as much as anything, in that players now have better diets, nutrition advice and health testing and screening that just wasn't possible in the "good old days".

That said; the European Cup winning sides were - as proven by the two trophies - the best side in Europe at that time.

in the 1979 and 1980 campaigns, we beat Liverpool, who at that point thought the European Cup was their personal property (and still haven't forgiven us for dumping them out!) we also beat Ajax (who were still a force, even though not at their early-70s peak).

Would Forest of 79/80 have beaten Barcelona of '10?

Who knows! Maybe that's an argument for FIFA on the Playstation.

All I know is (admittedly, as a 10-year old at the time) that Forest of 79/80 played some wonderful, magical football, and we can - even now, thirty years later - hold up our heads and say "we were the best team in the land!"

 

[Rich]

Say it, yes. But pleeeeeeeeeeeeeease don't sing it!

 

[cuppachump]

I think the fitness thing is massively overstated - I used to play non league around that time as a 16 - 18 year old and I used to cycle 50 miles a day, play 2-3 times a week and train twice a week - I was fitness obsessed and had a resting heart rate lower than an Olympic athlete, could run 200 meters just outside of the Olympic qualifying time - yet when I had trials at Mansfield I could not keep up or get near the play. Some of it was nerves admittedly, but players were f-ing fit back then just like they are now.

The Forest side (perhaps) were not the fittest team around - but believe me they would have been fit enough - and technically they were outstanding - take that squad of players, give them the benefits of modern diet and science and they would have strolled past the teams up there now (as long as they had Clough waiting in the dressing room with pre-match and half time "advice")

 

[Flaggers]

it's always one of those things which is so tricky to say. Can you imagine if John Robertson had been put through the sort of intensive fitness training and diets they have today?

He'd be dead of a heart attack! All those bacon butties, complete with grease dripped onto the blue suede shoes...porridge daily for breakfast... lol

That's why he's the size he was and the size he is now!

Mind you - he plaed in a Forest Old Boys v Some Random Celeb XI before the (iirc) Oldham League Cup final - still able to trap the ball, turn, step away and buy himslef enough space & time to ping the ball wherever he wanted, with the young upstarts fruitlessly chasing their own shadow....quality!

Class is permanent, and John Robertson had class by the boatload.

 

[RedMark]

Add to that the 40 a day smoking habit

 

[westyorksnffc]

was it not 1979 ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_European_Super_Cup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980_European_Super_Cup

It was in the 79/80 season but the games were played in Jan and Feb 1980.

 

[Anatoli]

Now Robbo was a frequent visitor to my house when I was a kid. His best mate lived in our attic for seven years.

The stories about his diet grow extreme and are not really accurate. These two young Scottish lads were into Roxy Music and David Bowie in a big way. They would sing Sorrow to you. They were both in 'digs' in Lady Bay, but if you told my Mum she fed Jimmy McCann an unhealthy diet, she would be very upset and I am sure the same went for Robbo's Landlady, Ann Hills.

Peter Taylor told a story about telling Robbo to lose the chip pan but I am unconvinced that he was that much of a slob. I also never saw him wear blue suede shoes. It was the seventies, not the fifties.

They certainly sang 'Sorrow'.

With your long blond hair and your eyes of blue...

 

[Flaggers]

I remember an interview in the Matchday Programme one day when I was small - Robbo spilled grease from a morning bacon cob onto his blue suede shows, and despite leaving them out several times, the dustbin men refused to take them away!