29 things we miss about football in the 90s

14 May 2015 07:16

It feels wrong to get nostalgic about the 1990s given that in our heads it only feels like a couple of years ago.

But the truth is, it’s the dim and distant past now – and football was a different sport back then.

Here’s some things we miss…

1. Fantasy Football League

Football really started to get fashionable during the new-lad period of the mid-90s. At the forefront of that were Frank Skinner and David Baddiel, bringing the fantasy craze to TV. There was an actual fantasy league in there somewhere, in which the celebrity guests competed, but mostly it was just two people being funny about football.

It was much-watch stuff for a while, with its Phoenix From The Flames recreations, its Big Hellos, Statto and the non-stop mockery of Jason Lee. The latter segment featured Baddiel blacking up to play the hapless pineapple-haired Nottingham Forest striker – which perhaps gives you a clue as to why it’s not on TV any more.

2. Kits with strings under the collar

Aston Villa's 1992/3 kit, as modelled by Dwight Yorke
Aston Villa’s 1992/3 kit, as modelled by Dwight Yorke (Phil O’Brien/EMPICS)

Eric Cantona playing for Manchester United
Eric Cantona – with collar up, naturally (Neal Simpson/EMPICS)

They just had a touch of class about them, didn’t they?

3. Football Italia

If that music doesn’t make you feel slightly strange inside, you weren’t a football fan in the 90s. We’re still screaming “Go Lazio!” at the end, even though we know that’s not what he’s saying really.

Check out this clip, which has everything you could possibly want – ridiculously famous special guest, incredible puns from James Richardson, and lots of 0-0 draws.

For your twice-weekly dose of AC Jimbo these days, subscribe to the Guardian Football Weekly podcast.

4. Luxury players

Georgi Kinkladze playing for Manchester City
(Neal Simpson/EMPICS)

Proper luxury players, in pretty average teams – like Benito Carbone, Matt Le Tissier, and the king of all luxury players, Georgi Kinkladze.

5. Euro 96

Paul Gascoigne playing for England against Scotland
(Neil Munns/PA)

The last time we were genuinely optimistic about British football. In our memories, the sun shined every day, England played the best football ever seen, and we woz robbed.

Gazza scored *that* goal against Scotland, Alan Shearer was the tournament’s top scorer and we even won a penalty shoot-out. We lost one too, but we’ll gloss over that. All was right with the world back then.

6. Sensible Soccer

Somehow, by not even trying to be vaguely realistic, Sensible Soccer and it’s sequel Sensible World Of Soccer managed to capture the essence of the sport better than any other.

7. Robbie Fowler’s nasal strips

Robbie Fowler playing for Liverpool
(Matthew Ashton/EMPICS)

Fowler’s distinctive accessory was supposed to hold his nostrils open, thus increasing airflow and improving athletic performance. Science didn’t think much of the claim, but Paula Radcliffe was a fan – and that’s good enough for us.

8. Wimbledon

Vinnie Jones playing for Wimbledon
(Ady Kerry/EMPICS)

Sorry, MK Dons fans, but it hasn’t quite been the same since they headed north.

9. Ridiculously attacking teams

Jurgen Klinsmann, Darren Anderton and Teddy Sheringham celebrate a Tottenham goal
(PA)

That kind of ‘we’ll score more than they do’ attitude seems to have more or less disappeared now, in favour of actual tactics.

That’s fine, but football has rarely been more exciting to watch than when played by Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle team, or that Tottenham five-man attack – Teddy Sheringham, Jurgen Klinsmann, Ilie Dumitrescu, Darren Anderton and Nick Barmby – under Ossie Ardiles.

10. Watching the scores on Ceefax with the radio on

In the internet age, or indeed the Soccer Saturday age, it’s surely impossible to convey the simple pleasure of watching the scores on Ceefax while listening to whatever the commentary match was on the radio.

The scores would normally span two pages at kick-off, then as more and more scorers were added it would stretch to three, then four… If a new page was added you knew someone had scored and you had that simultaneous hope and dread – it could have been your team, but it could have been the opposition. It was like the Schrodinger’s Cat of football.

11. Moustaches

Francis Benali playing for Southampton
Tache hero Francis Benali (David Jones/PA)

David Seaman playing for Arsenal
90s football’s most famous moustache on the face of David Seaman (Neal Simpson/EMPICS)

John Wark playing for Ipswich
(Paul Marriott/EMPICS)

12. Des Lynam

Des Lynam back in the 1990s
(Neal Simpson/EMPICS)

Talking of moustaches, the king of the sports presenters is, was and always will be Des Lynam. Whether doing his best to make a diet of Saturday afternoon nonsense sound thrilling on Grandstand, or dropping some casual one-liner on Match of the Day, Des did it best.

He’s a half-decent actor too.

13. Mysterious overseas signings

Tony Yeboah celebrates scoring for Leeds against Wimbledon
One of the greatest mysterious signings of the 90s (Rebecca Naden/PA)

These days, when your club brings in a player from overseas, you’ll probably know everything about them already, because you’ve seen them playing in Europe, or you’ve signed them on Football Manager or you’ve watched clips of them on YouTube. And even if you don’t recognise the name, a quick Google search will tell you everything you need to know.

Back in the 90s, there was a genuine sense of mystery when your team made an overseas signing. Chances are you’d never heard of them – and they could go either way. If you were lucky, your new signing was Tony Yeboah. If not, he could be Ali Dia.

14. Corinthian Prostars

“Back in the 90s we had these tiny model footballers with massive heads.” “Great! Were they some sort of game, like Subbuteo?” “No. Just little figures.” “So what was the point?” “Um…”

If anyone’s collection didn’t get thrown away by a parent during a tidying spree, they may now be worth upwards of £1.50.

15. Golden goals

Laurent Blanc scores for France against Paraguay
France’s Laurent Blanc scores an actual golden goal in the 1998 World Cup (Michael Steele/EMPICS)

It seems odd to think that the golden goal was actually a thing now – and a thing they used in World Cups, too. If you’re too young to remember this curio of footballing history, it was a short-lived form of extra time, in which the first team to score a goal won the game.

Intended to be exciting, what it actually achieved was making both sides so nervous of conceding they barely left their own half for the 30 minutes, leaving everyone happily waiting for the penalty shoot-out. Still – it was a novelty.

16. Crewe’s youth system

Under the watchful eye of Dario Gradi, Crewe’s academy gained near mythical status. At the time it seemed like they had an endless stream of players coming through the ranks, getting sold on and making them a fortune.

In fact your memory of this may be slightly coloured by your memories of plundering the Railwaymen in Football Manager (sorry, that should say Championship Manager) because the actual list of notable former academy players isn’t *that* amazing: Danny Murphy, Rob Jones, Seth Johnson, Dean Ashton… and that’s about it.

17. Football management simulations

Specifically ones that you didn’t need an actual Fifa coaching badge to be able to navigate. We get that the clue is in the word ‘simulation’, but still, the games are so realistic these days it seems like it would be easier to become a manager than it would be to master all their intricacies.

The ones we remember fondly are the ones where you found a formation that was guaranteed to win you almost every single game and you stuck to it, where you bought Tommy Svindal Larsen every time because he was awesome, where random non-league teams (we’re looking at you, Alfreton Town) spawned endless supplies of awesome new players and you could easily play a season in a day.

18. Arsenal’s mural

Arsenal playing in front of the Highbury mural
(Peter Robinson/EMPICS)

You’ll never hear us complaining about the Emirates – it’s a wonderful stadium – but it would definitely be improved by having a mural instead of a stand at one end.

That’s what Arsenal did when they were rebuilding the North Bank to make it all-seater back in the early 90s. The players hated it because of the eerie atmosphere it created, while it had to be repainted at least once when the lack of diversity among the painted supporters was pointed out. We still remember it fondly, though.

19. Lightning Seeds on Goal of the Month

With the exception of the Match of the Day theme tune itself, no piece of music will ever have as strong an association with football as that looped instrumental version of Life Of Riley that used to play over the goal of the month competition in the mid-90s.

The band have even cut together a collection of football clips to form a video for the song on their YouTube channel. There’s not many from the 90s in there, but if you close your eyes you can visualise Matt Le Tissier beating two Blackburn players before slamming it in from 30 yards.

20. Danny Baker’s Own Goals And Gaffs

Based on the revolutionary premise that footballers aren’t actually all that good, Danny Baker’s Own Goals And Gaffs was released in 1992 and was the beginning of a new genre of videos featuring players scoring own goals, miskicking the ball or just generally making fools of themselves.

What set Baker’s videos apart from the rest was his voiceover, some of which we can still quote along to. Nobody has ever quite captured what it’s like to be a football fan like he has.

21. Jimmy Hill’s England bow tie

22. Football magazines

The 90s was truly a golden age for football magazines. The Onion Bag, 90 Minutes, Shoot… Our favourite was the Onion Bag – a sort of Viz-cum-Private Eye for football fans. Some, like When Saturday Comes, march proudly on, while newcomers like the Blizzard are very welcome additions. But there was something about those fanzine-style mags of the 90s that gets us all nostalgic.

23. Genuinely terrible footballers playing for England

Barry Venison player for England
(Tony Marshall/EMPICS)

People complain about the stock of English players available to Roy Hodgson now, but back in the 90s any old Tom, Dick or Barry could get a game. That’s Barry Venison, by the way – he got two caps while playing for Newcastle. Other shockers from the 90s include: David White, Earl Barrett and of course Carlton Palmer.

Most, although not all, were given their debut by Graham Taylor – himself a spectacularly 90s creature. We can’t really say we miss him as England manager though – they were a bleak few years.

24. Outfield players going in goal

Lucas Radebe in goal for Leeds
(Laurence Griffiths/EMPICS)

It still happens, of course, but these days with managers allowed to pick 73 substitutes it’s a real rarity. Usually they were rubbish of course, but occasionally – like Leeds defender Lucas Radebe, who donned the gloves twice – they were actually quite good.

25. Mind games that worked

Radebe’s second spell in goal for Leeds came at Manchester United in 1996, after which the hosts’ boss Alex Ferguson criticised his opponents for only trying their hardest when they faced their rivals from across the Pennines.

Next up for Leeds were Newcastle, and Kevin Keegan was furious about what Ferguson said. That led to one of the most famous rants in football history – while presumably Fergie sat at home with a glass of Burgundy.

26. Offensively awful goalkeeper kits

Jorge Campos playing for Mexico
Jorge Campos (Wilfredo Lee/AP)

Kevin Pressman playing for Sheffield Wednesday
Kevin Pressman (Neal Simpson/EMPICS)

Ian Walker playing for Tottenham
(Matthew Ashton/EMPICS)

Not to mention Ian Walker’s hair. That’s almost worth an entry all of it own.

27. The Cup Winners’ Cup

So get this, right – there used to be a cup which you could only enter if you won a cup. It was called the Cup Winners’ Cup. It was great, and used to throw up finals as diverse as Manchester United v Barcelona and Parma v Royal Antwerp. For most British fans, though, it is probably chiefly remembered for the classic ‘Nayim from the halfway line’ effort in 1995.

Like a lot of things in football, it was ruined by the Champions League and was abolished in 1999.

28. Bald footballers

Attilio Lombardo playing for Crystal Palace
(Michael Steele/EMPICS)

Either because of some enormous sporting coincidence or because they all head off to the Advanced Hair Studio at the first hint of a receding hairline, footballers don’t go bald any more. It’s sad, really, in the macho world of professional football – because everyone knows a bald head signifies the most masculine of all men. Yes, you get the occasional shaved head – but proper baldies like Attilio Lombardo are few and far between.

29. The possibility that your team might actually be good one day

Leeds celebrate winning the title in 1992
(Neal Simpson/EMPICS)

Unless you support one of the big four, you’re pretty much resigned to the fact your team will never win the Premier League and probably won’t ever get into the Champions League – unless it gets bought by a billionaire.

It kind of sucks some of the life out of football – it used to feel like whoever you supported, whatever division they were in, there was an outside chance they could be up there and challenging within a few years. Teams used to get promoted from the second tier and win the title within a season or two. Not any more though – aside from the elite few, the rest of us just have to make do with our lot, watch the big boys in the Champions League – and remember the good old days.

Source: SNAPPA