Article Book Review: Frozen In Time, The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners’ Cup

The ECWC was a good tournament because it gave the less fancied teams a chance at European glory, including Rangers and Aberdeen. The British teams tended to do quite well in it, I suppose they got rid of it because the Champions' League took too many good teams away from the tournament thus weakening the competition. I think this was a mistake as the national cup winners deserve a chance of success in this tournament. Now they are introducing a 3rd European tournament, why not just bring the ECWC back instead?
 
The ECWC was a good tournament because it gave the less fancied teams a chance at European glory, including Rangers and Aberdeen. The British teams tended to do quite well in it, I suppose they got rid of it because the Champions' League took too many good teams away from the tournament thus weakening the competition. I think this was a mistake as the national cup winners deserve a chance of success in this tournament. Now they are introducing a 3rd European tournament, why not just bring the ECWC back instead?
Cause a lot of times the winner of it in 1 of bigger leagues would be in top 4. So in CL you would also have many seasons 2 top 4 teams playing each other in the final. So would you need to go to the semi finalists having a playoff to see who gets CWC place? You could also have top 4 teams competing in the semis of the cup. So you would need to go back to quarters for the entrants of CWC. Would be a farce. CL greed from big nations to get as many teams in CL as possible killed it
 
Cause a lot of times the winner of it in 1 of bigger leagues would be in top 4. So in CL you would also have many seasons 2 top 4 teams playing each other in the final. So would you need to go to the semi finalists having a playoff to see who gets CWC place? You could also have top 4 teams competing in the semis of the cup. So you would need to go back to quarters for the entrants of CWC. Would be a farce. CL greed from big nations to get as many teams in CL as possible killed it
It would give clubs from smaller nations a shot at glory though, and cup winners from the top nations are sometimes not the top sides. I think it would bring a bit of romance back into European football. In addition, I've never liked the idea of CL teams who finish 3rd dropping into the EL, they have had their shot at glory, why do they get this 2nd chance?
 
Looks a great read. One to pick up I think. I'd bring it back and cut down the bloated Europa League and potentially also cut out these mentally long qualifying rounds for smaller nations.
 
I always thought they ditched the wrong competition when they kept what was it ? - the UEFA cup ? at the time based on home league positions - in effect ignoring cup winners

There's something about a knock-out tournament that adds to the excitement imo & it suits some teams who can raise their game for a one off match (even when it was a 2 leg affair)

I know the later stages of the CL & Europa leagues still revert to knock-out rounds - but I'd still prefer a cup in Europe that's got similar rules to the Scottish Cup with
a one off tie - where you get drawn home or away & winner plays on

Anyway this book looks like a good read
 
Almost bought this as an ebook last night when scrolling through for new books, downloaded the sample but couldn't gauge from that alone how much coverage our 3 notable campaigns in the competition merited in the book.

Ended up buying a book about football in the NE of England by Harry Pearson instead, but will likely get round to getting this book at some point, especially if our heritage within the ECWC is given appropriate recognition within
 
Some smaller names have won it which is great for football I think, to name a few
Real Zaragoza, KV Mechelen, Dynamo Tblisi, AC Magdeburg, Slovan Bratislava, West Ham, Aberdeen, giving them European glory.
 
The ECWC was second only to the EC itself for prestige back in the day. It was usually the 2nd best team for each country that participated. The present day set up cant really compare, since every team that qualified for Europe back then would enter the CL now. (From the bigger countries anyways) I wish we’d go back to the old ways as all three of the old competitions were stronger back then than the present two-tier system that only widens the gap between rich and poor. The ECWC also had the edge of favouring teams who were particularly good with KO competition.
 
I have this and his UEFA Cup one ‘Where the cool kids hung out’

Both great reads, I really like the way both are written. Not just chronological and maybe not every detail going but with great themes and stories throughout.

looking forward to the one the author is doing on the European Cup (pre CL).
 
It's a good book and there's obviously a good bit about Rangers in it, given we have one of the best records of anyone who took part in the tournament. But there are errors. I enjoyed reading about the scum's defeat to MTK Budapest in the 1964 SF (they were 3-0 up after the first leg yet somehow managed to lose 0-4 in the second leg :))), but the author continually refers to them as "Stein's team" or suchlike, ignorant of the fact he didn't take over there till March 1965 and it was McGrory who was their manager. It's still a decent enough book but that was lazy research by the author.
 
The ECWC was definitely the no 2 competition prior to the UEFA cup As the old Fair Cities cup could have had a team finishing 8th in the league for example getting an invite You also had that anomaly where likes of Wrexham could enter the ECWC after winning the Welsh cup whilst playing in the English League
 
I always thought they ditched the wrong competition when they kept what was it ? - the UEFA cup ? at the time based on home league positions - in effect ignoring cup winners

There's something about a knock-out tournament that adds to the excitement imo & it suits some teams who can raise their game for a one off match (even when it was a 2 leg affair)

I know the later stages of the CL & Europa leagues still revert to knock-out rounds - but I'd still prefer a cup in Europe that's got similar rules to the Scottish Cup with
a one off tie - where you get drawn home or away & winner plays on

Anyway this book looks like a good read
Brilliant post
 
I have this and his UEFA Cup one ‘Where the cool kids hung out’

Both great reads, I really like the way both are written. Not just chronological and maybe not every detail going but with great themes and stories throughout.

looking forward to the one the author is doing on the European Cup (pre CL).
Just bought too, one a present. I hate reading (no patience for it) so will buy the uefa cup one if this ECWC one takes my fancy.
 
Footballs most romantic tournament imo. No one ever retained it after winning, and there's more than a few instances of champions reaching the final year after then losing (Fiorentina, Atletico, Anderlecht and PSG just off the top of my head) and of course ourselves denied the chance to defend it in 73.
Other than the obvious, I really wish we'd won the Scottish Cup in 98 so we could've taken part in the last CWC.
 
I apologize for the long post, and the name dropping, but like everyone on this site, I have a special fondness for the European Cup Winners’ Cup.


The first European tie I saw at Ibrox was in this competition, a 3:1 defeat against the eventual winners Valencia. Rainer Bonhof and Mario Kempes were outstanding that night.


I don’t remember the 1972 final, although I have clear memories of watching the two semi-final matches (the first leg in Germany, where we lived at the time, and the second in Glasgow). I remember that Derek Parlane’s girlfriend was my granny’s hairdresser and my brother and I got his autograph. I remember meeting John Grieg, Sandy Jardine, Alex McDonald and Colin Jackson several times that summer as they did a tour of various shops in Glasgow. Apart from my grandfather’s neighbours Tommy Muirhead and Bobby Brown, these were the first real-life footballers I had ever met, and they were very chatty and friendly.


In 1981, I was living in Germany and went to the final featured on the cover of the book, Dinamo Tbilisi v Carl-Zeiss Jena, in Düsseldorf. The losing semi-finalists were Feyenoord and Benfica, and they had been expected to contest the final, in front of 70,000 spectators. I remember that the final was halted after about 10 minutes for a confusing minutes’ silence in memory of the Chairman of the UEFA Referees’ Committee. Little did I know that in the last year of that decade, I would become Secretary of that very same Committee, and also responsible for the administration of the Cup-Winners’ Cup. After the presentation, the Tbilisi players did a lap of honour around the empty stadium; by the time they got to my end of the ground, I was the only person left, and they did a little victory dance just for me.


When I got back to Mönchengladbach railway station, my parents were there to meet me and told me that the Pope had been shot. (Sorry, can’t remember my reaction on hearing that, you’ll have to use your imagination…).


Early the next morning, I travelled by train and ferry to London, on my way to Glasgow. As soon as I got to London, I put my bag in left luggage and headed for Wembley, where Spurs were playing Manchester City in the FA Cup Final replay. The gates were open and I ran up the steps like Rocky Balboa reaching the top just in time to see Ricky Villa scoring his famous goal. All the talk on the underground train back was about whether Spurs would be able to play in the Cup Winners’ Cup the following season, as they had a ban dating back to 1974.


In 1988, I left my job in London and spent the year, and all my money, travelling around the world. By December, I had no job, no money and only the charity of my Rangers-supporting landlord, and good friend, kept a roof over my head. In January 1989, I casually replied to an ad in a national newspaper, and by June I was living in Switzerland and working for UEFA, as Secretary of the Referees Committee, with responsibility, as I mentioned above, for the Cup Winners’ Cup. I also had responsibility for the cups and medals of all competitions. These days, there are 700 or 800 people working for UEFA; on the day I started, there were just 27.


One of my first tasks was to order a new Cup Winners’ Cup trophy. Although I tried to talk them out of it, reminding them of all the great players who had handled it, I had to go ahead and order a new one. For some time, the old Cup, the one John Greig held aloft, stood on a plinth outside the Secretary-General’s office. One day, after seeing a member of staff flick his cigarette ash into it, I took it to my office and there it stayed until the Secretary-General agreed to build a special display cabinet for all the UEFA trophies.


In 1991, I carried the cup onto the pitch after Manchester United had beaten Barcelona in the final. In those days, only the 16 players (of each team) listed on the team sheet (plus the match officials) received medals. However, some months later, I managed to acquire a spare medal from the manufacturer, which I covertly gave to Alex Ferguson, after he jokingly complained that he had done all the work and got nothing. This was the first European medal he received. On the pitch, after the final, Johan Cruyff called me over and told me that his players were tired and cold and that in future, the runners-up should go first, get their medals and leave the stage to the winners. I passed Cruyff’s proposal onto the Secretary-General and the Committee agreed to do this.


Through my UEFA work, I got to know Campbell Ogilvie very well, and visited him at Ibrox whenever I was back in Glasgow. One day, he showed me round the trophy room and I was surprised to see that the club’s official Cup Winners’ Cup ‘replica’ was small, cheap, off-the-shelf effort. Long story, short: Rangers soon had a proper replica, made by the manufacturer of the real cup (and paid for by Rangers). Nowadays, clubs have full-sized replicas; however, in those days, everything was stricter, but it was the biggest replica allowed by the rules at the time.


Although technically the Cup Winners’ Cup still exists, merged with the UEFA Cup and then with the Europa League, I was very sad to see its name, and the trophy disappear in 1999. Whenever I become disillusioned with the commercialization and politicization of modern football, I think of maverick, unpredictable competitions like the Cup Winners’ Cup and remember why I have loved football so much.


The Cup Winners’ Cup gave Rangers fans some of their greatest nights, and the club its most famous victory. The Cup Winners’ Cup took me to Switzerland and gave my family many fantastic holidays there, and in Italy. The Cup Winners’ Cup that took me to Switzerland has kept me here. I don’t know if I will ever go back to Ibrox, but it is comforting to know that my parents’ bricks, my brother’s brick, and my brick will be holding up a wall at Ibrox long after I’ve gone, and that somewhere in the trophy room, or in the new museum, will be my own little contribution to the club, a homunculus (© Sheldon Cooper) in the form of the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
 
You managed to get some amazing teams in the Cup Winners Cup. I still can't get over the Bayern Munich team we beat on the way to our famous win.
 
You managed to get some amazing teams in the Cup Winners Cup. I still can't get over the Bayern Munich team we beat on the way to our famous win.
Me neither. Six of those Bayern players (Maier, Beckenbauer, Schwarzenbeck, Breitner, Hoeness and Müller) were in the starting eleven for the 1974 World Cup Final. If West Ham won the 1966 World Cup, then Rangers have a good claim to the 1974 World Cup...
 
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