The first play-offs

 When did the Football League Play Off’s begin is a fairly standard football quiz question. Most fans with some knowledge of the game can trot out the standard answer ‘at the end of the 1986-87 season’ and earn a valuable point in their search for whatever prize is on offer at the end.

 

However, for football purists, and aren’t we all, the answer is wrong as believe it or not the first Play Off’s were organised a good few years earlier, back, in fact, at the end of the 1892-93 season when they were known as ‘Test Matches’, a descriptive term that was borrowed from cricket where it was first used to describe international matches thirty years previously in 1861-62.

 

Football ‘test matches’ or play-offs were the result of the expansion of the Football League from one Division to two. A First Division was launched after William McGregor wrote to some of the leading clubs in March 1888 and after two meetings the founder members of the League were agreed. It is a remarkable achievement that 137 years later only Accrington from the original twelve are no longer in the league - or kicking at all after going out of business in the 1890s.

 

Football had only really become popular a relatively short time before the launch of the Football League and occurred alongside the rapid urbanisation then taking place throughout England and Wales and which by 1860 was starting to produce an annual increase in real wages for workers giving them more money to spend not only on essentials but also on activities that they enjoyed participating in and watching.

 

With the gradual reduction of the working week from six days to five and a half, with Saturday afternoons off, the fledgling football clubs in areas with large populations soon realised that they could charge an entry fee for spectators keen to see games that were quick and exciting to watch.  With the money the clubs could, after they’d covered their expenses, start to pay players, managers and a training staff even if it meant obtaining them from outside their own localities and by 1885 professionalism was legalised within the game of football in England.

 

FA Rule 25 – ‘Matches shall not be played on Sundays within the jurisdiction of the Association.’

 

The start of the Football League meant guaranteed fixtures for the leading clubs and depending upon how many entered the ground then a guaranteed income. By the start of the 20^th century there was already in place a highly complex network of about 200 mutually dependent business organisations supported by thousands of smaller amateur clubs – much as it is today in the 21^st century. 

 

When the Football League began in 1888 it was agreed that at the end of the season the bottom four clubs would be required to retire at the end of the season and stand for re-election against teams from outside the league who wished to become members, with the first team to lose its place in this way being Stoke FC who were replaced by a first team from the north-east, Sunderland AFC, formed 1880, at the end of the second ever league season in 1890.

 

Meanwhile a rival competition had been established, the Football Alliance, and it was agreed that it would be a good idea if the two were merged and this is what happened at the end of the 1891-92 season. This presented a problem in that there was no way of deciding how teams from Division Two could replace those finishing near the bottom of Division One. It was agreed that the fairest way would be for bottom 3 Division One teams to play the top 3 from the lower tier with the winners each playing in the top league the following season.

 

This kicked off on April 22^nd 1893 when Manchester United or Newton Heath to give them their name of the time, Notts County and Accrington from the bottom played Small Heath (later known as Birmingham City), Darwen and Sheffield United respectively with Man Utd, Darwen and Sheffield United proving successful.

 

Small Heath were again back the following season overcoming Darwen, whilst the great north-west rivals of Liverpool and Manchester United squared up to each other for the first time with Liverpool winning 2-0 and Preston hung on to their top flight spot by beating Notts County 4-0.

 

In 1894-95 Bury, Derby County and Stoke were all successful in overcoming the challenges of Liverpool, Notts County and Manchester United.

 

Teams involved with the test matches had been using a loophole in the laws of the game to attract players to play in them. To try and stop this the Football League decided in 1895 that in order to participate any player concerned had to have played in at least four league games for the club previously or been resident in the club’s home town for at least four weeks beforehand. This was intended to stop clubs trying to buy their way out of trouble.

 

In 1895-96 the one-off games were changed and a league format was introduced involving the bottom two from Division One and the top two from Division Two playing one another. This allowed bottom placed West Bromwich Albion to escape relegation whilst Liverpool replaced Birmingham with Manchester City staying where they started in Division Two.

 

In 1896-97 there was a major shock when three times League Champions Sunderland finished second bottom in Division One and along with Burnley, who had finished bottom, were joined by Newton Heath and Notts County in the eight games ‘mini-league.’ 

 

Things looked bleak for Sunderland as they had only two points from the first three games, but in front of 8,000 spectators at their then Newcastle Road ground they beat Newton Heath with two goals from Jas Gillespie - a result that saw the Manchester side start the following season in Division Two alongside Lancashire rivals Burnley. For Sunderland the escape helped ensure that until 1958, when they were finally relegated from Division One, to proudly claim that they had played all their games in the top flight.

 

The 1897-98 season was the last of the original football league play-offs and it pitched Blackburn Rovers and Stoke City from the first up against Newcastle United and Burnley from the second. 

 

When the final round of matches took place on April 30^th 1898 Stoke and Burnley knew that they only had to draw their game to be playing First Division football the following season. What followed was a total farce, the most boring game of football ever played ended 0-0. 

 

Staffordshire Advertiser

‘The game proved a complete fiasco.’

 

Athletic News

‘The teams could have done without goalkeepers so anxious were the forwards not to score’

 

Burnley’s bitter rivals Blackburn Rovers and Newcastle United were staying down.

 

 

In fact, Rovers and Newcastle both did gain promotion that season when it was agreed to enlarge the First Division.  The Stoke-Burnley game did however provide the final ‘nail in the coffin’ for the test matches as they had not been regarded as particularly fair or successful and from the 1898-99 season they were replaced by automatic promotion and relegation. Bolton Wanderers and Sheffield Wednesday were the first Division One teams to be denied an opportunity to hang on to their places through the test matches.

 

What happened next?

 

The answer is very little, but in 1920 the first division of the Southern League became the Third Division. It had been intended to form a northern section of Division Three but there was no ‘Northern League’ and it took another year to form one, this being composed of teams from across the North East, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Birmingham, Lincolnshire and Midland districts. Maintaining the principle of two up two down as it applied to Division One and Two it meant that only the winners of the Third Division North and South moved up a league to replace the bottom two in Division Two.

 

Almost 40 years later and shortly after the opening of the first Motorway the Football League formed Division Three and Four. Teams finishing in the bottom half of the Third Division North and South dropped into the fourth. Instead of two up and two down it was agreed that at the end of the first season, 1958-59, four teams would be promoted from Division Four to replace the bottom four in Division Three. This had first been proposed for all the leagues by Mr W Bendle Moore, the chairman of Derby County, in 1931 but his efforts floundered due to the opposition of other chairmen who felt it would produce chaos.

 

When it was finally introduced for the bottom leagues the hopes were that with more chances of being promoted, and of course relegated, it would increase excitement and no doubt bring more spectators through the gates to produce much needed revenue. Whilst it didn’t embody the principle of ‘every game will count’ that has been used to justify the play-offs it went somewhere towards it and in 1973/74 the decision was taken to make it three up from Division Two to replace three down from Division One.

 

Many years earlier during the mid 1920s the great Huddersfield and later Arsenal Herbert Chapman had suggested that eleven teams should be relegated and eleven promoted each season, a proposal which if enacted would mean ‘every game would matter’ but would probably reduce each league to a farce. Chapman had advanced his argument as he hoped to restrict clubs spending excessive amounts of money on new players in order to ‘stay up’ and also because he wanted to reduce the stigma of relegation.

 

Hardly surprisingly the proposals were rubbished with the then League President Mr John McKenna saying:- “The Management Committee would never dream of making such a suggestion as the interchange of 11 clubs instead of two.” Perhaps not then, but perhaps some Chairman today might not think it too bad an idea?

 

The current play off system was introduced as part of a radical series of changes when football was in a major crisis. On February 14^th 1985 the Chairmen of the Football League rejected a TV deal that would have meant receipts of £19 million over four years. The negotiating group and the League Management Committee had recommended acceptance of the deal but the chairmen, led by Robert Maxwell of Oxford United, wanted more money, even suggesting they would hold out for £80 million.

 

The ‘Big Five’ clubs which at that time consisted of Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Spurs and Everton had already expressed their concern about smaller clubs having too much say and had started meeting to discuss issues back in 1982. Only one, Liverpool, of the five was represented on the League Management Committee. Their objections were primarily about sharing gate receipts [they wanted clubs to be able to keep all the gate receipts from their home matches] and they also objected to paying a 4% share of the gate receipts into a pool to be distributed throughout all the clubs – they wanted this reducing to 3%.

 

At the League Annual General Meeting in 1983 these clubs had managed to persuade others to agree to clubs keeping their home receipts - the smaller clubs feared that unless they agreed a deal the larger ones might walk away and create their own league, a reasonable assumption bearing in mind what did, in fact, happen.

 

When the Football League Chairman turned down the proposed TV deal on St Valentine’s Day they could not have predicted what would happen next. There were riots at Kenilworth Road in an FA Cup match between Luton Town and Millwall, serious disorder by Chelsea fans at both League Cup semi-final matches with Sunderland, a major disturbance at the Birmingham-Leeds final day game and then a massive fire at Bradford City’s final home game which killed 56 people. [1] All followed by the deaths of 39 more people at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium [2] after the Liverpool fans pulling down of an inadequate fence led to panic amongst those standing in an area that should have been left empty and crushing at the side of the ground. Did TV companies really feel the need to cover such a sport? The answer was not that much and certainly not if it involved laying out a great deal of money.

 

The Conservative Government were also outraged and football was told to get its house in order. English clubs were banned from European Football with the consequent loss of TV interest such that when the following season [1985-86] kicked off there was no live football on television.

 

It was at this point that the Big 5 made their move and on September 30^th 1985 they invited 13-15 other clubs to join them in a Super League with Ted Croker from the Football Association at its head.

 

During the discussions there was talk of a 20 tier top league and 24 in the second, with third and fourth division clubs cut adrift. Graham Kelly of the Football League believed that something had to be done to keep the major clubs in the Football League ‘framework’ but also knew that the leading clubs were not prepared to stand by the status quo. 

 

How keen is something still worth exploring as it would have involved a great deal of work both administratively and financially by the big clubs, whilst Gordon Taylor, chairman of the PFA, was able to obtain support from the players to oppose the breakaway by threatening strike action.

 

It was thus agreed on December 18^th 1985 not to give one division total control but to change the revenue shares – the First division would get 50% of TV and sponsors money, Second Division – 25% and associate members [i.e. the third and fourth] – 25%

 

It was agreed to reduce the First division from 22 to 20 teams but not to do this immediately and it was with this in mind that there would be a staggered promotion and relegation, supplemented by play-offs similar to the American Leagues – these would operate for two years but if they were popular they would be maintained for the foreseeable future. [in fact, the play-offs are massively popular today and it was the lower league chairman that had first suggested them in 1983, the top teams simply latched onto the idea]

 

On the League Management Committee, it was agreed there would be four from Division One clubs,  three from Division Two and one from the associate members - all of which failed to stand the test of time as by 1992 the Premier League was up and running.