From Dave Bassett's Wimbledon to Carlisle's glory run in the mid 70s, here are half-a-dozen surprise early-season leaders
1) Wimbledon 1986-87
Wimbledon's first fixture in the big time could hardly have panned out worse. Away at Manchester City, Andy Thorn scored the Crazy Gang's first-ever top flight goal, a curling fluke of a free-kick from the touchline, but within 10 minutes of taking the lead, the Dons were 3-1 down. After the game, one of the team kitbags was stolen from the car park by a "skinny Moss Side adolescent". Manager Dave Bassett was sanguine. "It's still much better than playing at Rochdale."
Things would quickly improve. Wimbledon's first top-flight game at Plough Lane ended in a not-as-close-as-it-sounds 3-2 victory over Aston Villa ? a club which had been the European champion a mere four years before ? and was followed up by two 1-0 wins, the first at home against a defensive Leicester City, the second a gritty victory at Charlton, Dennis Wise sending Wimbledon top in only his fourth full league appearance. "All the experts wrote them off," said Charlton boss Lennie Lawrence, "but I can tell you it takes some effort and commitment to match them."
"My mum will want this season to finish tomorrow," joked Bassett, as he looked at a table with his minnows on top, and Manchester United at the very bottom. "I'm not saying this is two fingers up to Ted Croker," he added, referring to the FA secretary who had questioned whether Wimbledon should have been allowed into the top division, "because we have already answered him. But we have shown that football does need clubs like us."
It couldn't last, of course, and the Merseyside aristocracy of the time ? champions-elect Everton and the reigning champs Liverpool ? both soon turned up at Plough Lane and made off with the points. (Wimbledon would soon gain revenge over both in the FA Cup over the next two seasons, but that's another story.) Still, the rest of the season was still some achievement: Wimbledon ended up in sixth place, 10 points ahead of Manchester United, who they beat home and away.
2) Coventry City, QPR and Norwich City 1992-93
Coventry's best remembered start to a Premier League season came in 1993-94, Mick Quinn ripping Arsenal to shreds at Highbury on the opening day of the season with an unanswered hat-trick. It was a doubly jaw-dropping result because it was Arsenal's second opening-day shambles at Highbury in a row, Norwich having done them 4-2 in their first-ever Premier League game 12 months earlier.
Everyone remembers Norwich as the pacesetters in that inaugural Premier League season, though technically it was Coventry who made the really early running in 1992-93. They won their first three games: at home to Middlesbrough, then two highly impressive away wins at Tottenham and Wimbledon, the former postman John Williams, a �250,000 buy from Swansea, scoring three times in his first three top-flight games.
The baton was passed to QPR as the two teams met at Highfield Road, Andy Impey scoring the only goal. "The time to be on top is the last game of the season, not the fourth," said the very wise QPR boss Gerry Francis after the game. Three days later, his side lost at Chelsea, while newly promoted Blackburn Rovers, spearheaded by Alan Shearer, became the second side to win at Coventry to go top. Norwich would soon take over, and while Blackburn, QPR and Coventry would keep up the pace for a couple of months, it was only Mike Walker's side who stuck with it when the big boys ? Aston Villa and Manchester United ? arrived on the scene. A rollercoaster start to life in the Premier League, and one which gave false hopes of unpredictability in English football's brave new world.
3) Carlisle United 1974-75
Alan Ashman had led West Bromwich Albion to the FA Cup in 1968, but he rated his feat in getting Carlisle United into the First Division in 1974 as his crowning glory. The team were the first beneficiaries of the new three-up three-down system between the First and Second Divisions, notably passing Manchester United, who were headed the other way. (Southampton, for the record, were the first third-from-bottom relegation victims of the new policy.)
Carlisle's opening match was at Chelsea, and they brought their entire staff down to London to sample the delights of the First Division, filling three carriages of the train. And a train is exactly how they set off, Chris Balderstone's free-kick setting up Bill Green for the opener within two minutes. Les O'Neill added a second with a looping cross that flew over Peter Bonetti's head.
O'Neill scored two more as Carlisle then won at Middlesbrough, who had been the easy winners of the previous season's Second Division. The team then reached the top with a 1-0 win over Spurs, Balderstone ? who also played cricket for Leicestershire ? scoring the winning penalty. "We've given our supporters the day of glory they wanted," said Ashman. "We've shown we have the skill and character to survive in the First Division."
Sadly, that wouldn't prove to be the case. Carlisle ended the season bottom, though they did leave a major mark on the top of the table: two of their subsequent wins came at the expense of Billy Bingham's Everton, who ended the season only three points behind the champions Derby County.
4) West Ham United 1983-84
"Seldom can three points, and indeed leadership of the league, have been won more cheaply," wrote Patrick Barclay in this paper of West Ham United's 1-0 victory at Everton at the end of August 1983. It was the Hammers' second game of a late-starting season, Birmingham having been pasted 4-0 at Upton Park in the opener. "They spent most of the afternoon contendedly defending their penalty area from Everton's banal probing but with 20 minutes left a goalkeeping misjudgement enabled Steve Walford, one of four central defenders in an unadventurous side, to score a freak goal ... he crossed right-footed, something he does not normally do by choice, and was as astonished as everyone else when the ball sailed behind the groping Jim Arnold and into the net."
But having hit the top, West Ham began to hit their stride. In their next game, they won 2-0 at Tottenham, impressing David Lacey as they did so. "Both of the goals they scored carried touches of class ... they have managed to harness a stronger physical presence to their traditional playing patterns." Walford, Whitton, Cottee and Stewart were mentioned in dispatches.
A 3-1 win over Leicester was followed by a crazy win over Coventry which saw them fall two goals behind, miss a penalty, yet end the game 5-2 to the good. After five games, they were the only team in the First Division with a 100% record. There was tentative talk of the title, but it didn't last long: a run of only one win in six, including back to back comprehensive 3-1 defeats by Stoke City and Liverpool, saw them eventually replaced at the top by Manchester United. West Ham kept on United's, and then Liverpool's, tail until the New Year, whereupon they slowly slipped back into the pack, ending the season in ninth, as the legendary Trevor Brooking bade his farewell.
5) Millwall 19891990
Whether Millwall reached the top of the nascent 1989-90 First Division table in style is a moot point. Having won at Southampton on the opening day, then drawn with Charlton and beaten Nottingham Forest at home, John Docherty's side needed a point to reach the summit. They got there, twice coming from behind at Wimbledon to force a draw, but despite four goals, the only real entertainment in a low-quality game came before the first whistle, when a Millwall shot during the warm up knocked a bobby's helmet straight off his head.
But having been immediately nudged off the top by Coventry and Norwich, Millwall bounced back with panache in an eventful thrashing of the former at the Den. Two early goals by Teddy Sheringham and a third "slam dunked" by Steve Anthrobus "with Larry Byrd-like timing", according to the Guardian, sealed it for Millwall. Coventry's David Speedie spent the entire second half in goal, deputising for the injured Steve Ogrizovic, and only let in one more; the game ended 4-1.
But it would go wrong spectacularly the following week at Old Trafford. On Paul Ince's Manchester United league debut, Millwall were holding their hosts at 1-1 approaching half-time, thanks to an opportunistic lob by Sheringham. But just before the whistle, Bryan Robson crashed one home. By the end, Mark Hughes had scored a sublime hat-trick, and Millwall were thrashed 5-1. It was a harbinger of things to come. Millwall bounced back with a win over Sheffield Wednesday on 23 September, but it would be one of only two more league wins all season. Doherty's side slid down the table at an alarming rate, their only other victory coming against Aston Villa in December. By the time they were relegated, their leading striker Tony Cascarino had joined Villa. Sheringham would stay for one more season, but his goals wouldn't be enough to help Millwall back into the big time, and he'd soon be upping sticks for Nottingham Forest.
6) QPR 1987-88
Colin Harvey's Everton were the Guardian's hot tips for the 1987-88 title, proof that when it comes to erroneous tips involving teams from Merseyside, we've always had the knack. Our pick of the London set meanwhile was George Graham's Arsenal; we couldn't get that wrong too, surely? Well, yes, though you can hardly blame us for that one. Nobody gave a thought to Jim Smith's Queen's Park Rangers, who raced out of the blocks with a 3-0 win at West Ham, and then set about giving some of the division's big names a bloody nose on their plastic pitch. Within the first month of the season, they had beaten Arsenal, Chelsea and champions Everton on their preposterous surface at Loftus Road, and found themselves five points clear of second-placed Tottenham Hotspur.
While their Astroturf undoubtedly gave them an added advantage at home, Rangers were decent away too. In addition to the win at Upton Park, they enjoyed early triumphs at Southampton, Charlton and Wimbledon. Smith had built a decent team, adding Paul Parker, David Seaman and Kevin Brock to the side that had reached the 1986 Milk Cup final. Alongside Parker and in front of Seaman were Terry Fenwick and Alan McDonald. After the Chelsea match, Smith dared to dream: "Three more matches and that's a quarter of the fixtures gone."
Problem was, Liverpool were coming up on the rails. Nobody had been sure whether Kenny Dalglish's all-new team, built around John Barnes and Peter Beardsley, would click. But click they most certainly did. They were forced to postpone their opening three home games due to a jiggered pipe under the Kop, allowing QPR a healthy lead, but it was only a matter of time before the west London pretenders were usurped. When the two teams met at Anfield in the middle of October, QPR were three points in front, but Liverpool had two games in hand. Moreover, they had developed a habit of putting four goals past sides: Coventry, Newcastle, Derby and Portsmouth had all suffered.
What happened next seems to have been inevitable in retrospect, but that ignores the fact Rangers held out for 42 minutes, giving as good as they got in terms of pass-and-move football. But Craig Johnston scored, John Aldridge added a penalty early in the second half, and then Barnes scored possibly his two most iconic goals in a red shirt, a one-two with Beardsley to saunter through the centre of a previously solid defence, then the pickpocketing of Brock in the centre circle and a sashay downfield to score. Another four-goal rout, and Liverpool replaced Rangers at the top, never to look back. It was the end of the dream for Smith's men, though they did end the season in fifth, one place ahead of the next-best London side, Arsenal.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/aug/26/joy-of-six-early-season
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