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A Tournament Frozen in Time: The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners Cup
The Wonderful Randomness of the European Cup Winners' Cup is a homage to the awkward sibling of the European Champions' Cup (for high achievers) and the UEFA Cup (where the cool kids hung out). Domestic cup success was what gained entry to this hipster tournament, attracting a richer diversity of competitor than its more celebrated counterparts.
288 pages, Hardcover
Published December 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
May 17, 2021
The European Cup Winners’ Cup is undoubtedly the quirkiest of the main UEFA club tournaments. It featured a mix of small clubs who had managed to string a possibly once-in-a-lifetime Cup run together alongside larger clubs who had messed up domestically and needed that same Cup run to save their season. It was won by Juventus, Barcelona and Manchester United – but the question always was how had they fallen so low as to be in it in the first place – but it also featured Real Madrid’s reserves, FC Balzers of the Swiss fourth tier (via the Liechtenstein Cup), and my team, UCD, which gives the tournament added favour from my point of view.
How to chart the history of the tournament though? What holds it all together? Scragg goes with a geographic structure – a chapter on Iron Curtain teams, on English teams, Iberian teams, Benelux teams, and so on. It’s a valid approach, but it doesn’t really work, as we travel the tournament from 1960 to 1999 and back again on a loop, sometimes running into past chapters as we go. A section on Spurs has a detailed run to their 1963 final against Atletico Madrid abruptly ended by describing the final as “the most evenly matched thrashing ever administered in a Cup Winners’ Cup Final”, and you have to remember that the match was covered 80 pages earlier in the Spanish chapter.
It’s also an approach which relies a bit too much on individual match details, which are often told in needless detail. The report of West Ham v Anderlecht in the 76 final goes on for six pages, with the author seemingly watching the game back on YouTube and writing down all he sees. The full page of frame-by-frame detail on the move which led to Anderlecht’s penalty adds nothing to our understanding of the competition as a whole. It’s an issue which recurs throughout the book.
But where this book really falls down is in the writing. Scragg has a Dan Brown-like ability use a word he evidently doesn’t really know the meaning of. So Bayern Munich are “the West German footballing Cyclops” while Everton are described as “a mirage in European competition”, as are Manchester City and Juve’s Beniamino Vignola. A Juve v PSG tie is “embossed by a 0-0 scoreline”, a 30-yard free-kick is “caressed in”, Rangers against Glentoran is “an evocative first-round meeting” (but evocative of what, we’re not told), and their win sees them face “a clearly defined task in the next round” (which surely can be said of any draw without the word “or” in it?) Add that to general verbiage and a liberal and irritating sprinkling of commas, and you get sentences like this, as West Ham return from a 2-2 away draw against Reipas Lahti in 1975 – “With pretentions [sic] of rectifying their first-leg Helsinki meanderings, West Ham, while eventually running out 3-0 winners in the return game, had to wait until the hour mark to ease the shoulders of all those of a claret-and-blue persuasion.” “Meanderings” as a noun, appropriately enough, means “convoluted or undirected thought or language”.
A good editor would have chopped a maybe 70 pages off the text and given room for the more interesting snippets to breathe. The 1972 final between Rangers and Dynamo Moscow clashed with a Scotland international, and the SFA blocked live coverage of the match so as not to affect the attendance at Hampden. The 1962 final replay was four months after the original drawn match as no replay had been planned for, and several players were off to Chile for the World Cup shortly after the original date. Away goals were initially used in early rounds only; Gornik Zabrze, en route to the 1970 final, won on away goals in the quarter-final but on a coin-toss in the semi-final, when they would actually have lost on away goals. The 1999 final, the last ever game in the tournament, was also the first time Villa Park hosted a match.
It would also have allowed other items which are at best barely touched on to be expanded on. Why was the competition started in the first place? How did prize money evolve, and how did clubs fund trips in the era before prize money (which was most of the CWC’s lifetime)? What were the logistical challenges of going to Albania or the USSR in the 60s? Why was Spurs v Stockerau of Austria one of only two Qualifying Round ties in 1991/92, while sides from Malta, Luxembourg and Iceland got a bye to the First Round? How were the more outrageous Welsh runs viewed at the time? A contemporary newspaper quote or two would have added a lot here. Who were the Irish college team who nearly knocked out Everton – one of the best teams in the world at the time – as they started their victorious 84/85 campaign? This latter – and I’m biased, of course – surely comes under “the wonderful randomness of the European Cup Winners’ Cup” and to me, these stories are more deserving of detail than how a penalty was won in one game. Instead, we’re more likely to read that Nantes keeper Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes was “a goalkeeper so good he needed two hyphens in his name.”
Scragg’s follow-up, Where the Cool Kids Hung Out, focuses on the UEFA Cup. I think I’ll pass.
How to chart the history of the tournament though? What holds it all together? Scragg goes with a geographic structure – a chapter on Iron Curtain teams, on English teams, Iberian teams, Benelux teams, and so on. It’s a valid approach, but it doesn’t really work, as we travel the tournament from 1960 to 1999 and back again on a loop, sometimes running into past chapters as we go. A section on Spurs has a detailed run to their 1963 final against Atletico Madrid abruptly ended by describing the final as “the most evenly matched thrashing ever administered in a Cup Winners’ Cup Final”, and you have to remember that the match was covered 80 pages earlier in the Spanish chapter.
It’s also an approach which relies a bit too much on individual match details, which are often told in needless detail. The report of West Ham v Anderlecht in the 76 final goes on for six pages, with the author seemingly watching the game back on YouTube and writing down all he sees. The full page of frame-by-frame detail on the move which led to Anderlecht’s penalty adds nothing to our understanding of the competition as a whole. It’s an issue which recurs throughout the book.
But where this book really falls down is in the writing. Scragg has a Dan Brown-like ability use a word he evidently doesn’t really know the meaning of. So Bayern Munich are “the West German footballing Cyclops” while Everton are described as “a mirage in European competition”, as are Manchester City and Juve’s Beniamino Vignola. A Juve v PSG tie is “embossed by a 0-0 scoreline”, a 30-yard free-kick is “caressed in”, Rangers against Glentoran is “an evocative first-round meeting” (but evocative of what, we’re not told), and their win sees them face “a clearly defined task in the next round” (which surely can be said of any draw without the word “or” in it?) Add that to general verbiage and a liberal and irritating sprinkling of commas, and you get sentences like this, as West Ham return from a 2-2 away draw against Reipas Lahti in 1975 – “With pretentions [sic] of rectifying their first-leg Helsinki meanderings, West Ham, while eventually running out 3-0 winners in the return game, had to wait until the hour mark to ease the shoulders of all those of a claret-and-blue persuasion.” “Meanderings” as a noun, appropriately enough, means “convoluted or undirected thought or language”.
A good editor would have chopped a maybe 70 pages off the text and given room for the more interesting snippets to breathe. The 1972 final between Rangers and Dynamo Moscow clashed with a Scotland international, and the SFA blocked live coverage of the match so as not to affect the attendance at Hampden. The 1962 final replay was four months after the original drawn match as no replay had been planned for, and several players were off to Chile for the World Cup shortly after the original date. Away goals were initially used in early rounds only; Gornik Zabrze, en route to the 1970 final, won on away goals in the quarter-final but on a coin-toss in the semi-final, when they would actually have lost on away goals. The 1999 final, the last ever game in the tournament, was also the first time Villa Park hosted a match.
It would also have allowed other items which are at best barely touched on to be expanded on. Why was the competition started in the first place? How did prize money evolve, and how did clubs fund trips in the era before prize money (which was most of the CWC’s lifetime)? What were the logistical challenges of going to Albania or the USSR in the 60s? Why was Spurs v Stockerau of Austria one of only two Qualifying Round ties in 1991/92, while sides from Malta, Luxembourg and Iceland got a bye to the First Round? How were the more outrageous Welsh runs viewed at the time? A contemporary newspaper quote or two would have added a lot here. Who were the Irish college team who nearly knocked out Everton – one of the best teams in the world at the time – as they started their victorious 84/85 campaign? This latter – and I’m biased, of course – surely comes under “the wonderful randomness of the European Cup Winners’ Cup” and to me, these stories are more deserving of detail than how a penalty was won in one game. Instead, we’re more likely to read that Nantes keeper Jean-Paul Bertrand-Demanes was “a goalkeeper so good he needed two hyphens in his name.”
Scragg’s follow-up, Where the Cool Kids Hung Out, focuses on the UEFA Cup. I think I’ll pass.
April 23, 2020
A very interesting and enjoyable read, I have little to no knowledge of the Cup Winners Cup beyond hearing snippets here or there and how it is a cup Liverpool failed to win. So reading some of the history of it was very interesting particularly with how mismatched on paper some matches were the likes of Real Madrid facing Cardiff City or locally to me Atalanta facing Merthyr Tydfil.
I did enjoy the book although some parts it felt like the same sentences were being repeated. Could have been a tighter written book.
That said the content and narratives provided through the years of the Cup Winners Cup was very interesting and it is a book I would recommend to football fans.
I did enjoy the book although some parts it felt like the same sentences were being repeated. Could have been a tighter written book.
That said the content and narratives provided through the years of the Cup Winners Cup was very interesting and it is a book I would recommend to football fans.
April 16, 2020
Steven Scraggin "A Tournament Frozen in Time" (Pitch, 2019) käsittelee Cup-voittajien cupin historiaa. Vuosina 1960-1999 järjestyttyyn turnaukseen ottivat osaa kansallisten sarjojen cup-voittajat, eikä se välttämättä nauttinut suurinta mahdollista arvostusta eurooppalaisessa jalkapalloperheessä.
Turnaukseen ottivat osaa Barcelonan kaltaisten mammuttien lisäksi myös pienemmät ja eksoottisemmat seurat eri puolilta maanosaa. Nämä saavuttivat myös kohtalaisen mukavasti menestystä: muun muassa Wrexham onnistui pudottamaan FC Porton syksyllä 1984 ja kolmosdivisioonassa pelannut Newport kolkutteli paikkaa välierissä v. 1980-1981 turnauksessa.
Scraggille 80/81 turnaus on muutenkin omalaatuisen turnauksen kulminaatiopiste. Finaalissa kohtasivat tuolloin itäsaksalainen Carl Zeiss Jena ja neuvostoliittolainen Tbilisin Dynamo. Tapahtumille on kirjassa omistettu kokonainen luku, ja tekijä on muutenkin jonkinlainen jalkapalloromantikko haikaillessaan takaisin menneeseen aikakauteen, jolloin eurokentät eivät olleet vain rikkaiden ja mahtavien yksinoikeutta, ja jolloin ratkaisevan maalin tehnyt pelaaja saattoi laittaa nappulakengät naulaan ryhtyäkseen poliisiksi.
"Tournament Frozen in Time" perustuu kaiketi tekijänsä jalkapalloaiheiseen podcastiin. Se lienee vaikuttanut kirjan hajanaiseen rakenteeseen. Se koostuu kahdestatoista luvusta, joissa käsitellään lähinnä brittien ja suurempien jalkapallomaiden seurojen menestystä turnauksessa. Suomalaisia seuroja ei mainita kuin sivulauseissa, ja esimerkiksi meikäläisten paras saavutus eli RoPS:in selviytyminen kahdeksan parhaan joukkoon jää kokonaan mainitsematta. Olisin itse saattanut tykätä enemmän kronologisesta aikajanasta.
Scraggilla etenee valitettavan usein yksitotisesti ottelupareja, maalintekijöitä ja lopputuloksia kerraten. Se ei ole erityisen mielenkiintoista, mutta onneksi hänellä on höysteeksi myös kiinnostavia tarinoita ja mukavia anekdootteja kerrottavanaan.
Turnaukseen ottivat osaa Barcelonan kaltaisten mammuttien lisäksi myös pienemmät ja eksoottisemmat seurat eri puolilta maanosaa. Nämä saavuttivat myös kohtalaisen mukavasti menestystä: muun muassa Wrexham onnistui pudottamaan FC Porton syksyllä 1984 ja kolmosdivisioonassa pelannut Newport kolkutteli paikkaa välierissä v. 1980-1981 turnauksessa.
Scraggille 80/81 turnaus on muutenkin omalaatuisen turnauksen kulminaatiopiste. Finaalissa kohtasivat tuolloin itäsaksalainen Carl Zeiss Jena ja neuvostoliittolainen Tbilisin Dynamo. Tapahtumille on kirjassa omistettu kokonainen luku, ja tekijä on muutenkin jonkinlainen jalkapalloromantikko haikaillessaan takaisin menneeseen aikakauteen, jolloin eurokentät eivät olleet vain rikkaiden ja mahtavien yksinoikeutta, ja jolloin ratkaisevan maalin tehnyt pelaaja saattoi laittaa nappulakengät naulaan ryhtyäkseen poliisiksi.
"Tournament Frozen in Time" perustuu kaiketi tekijänsä jalkapalloaiheiseen podcastiin. Se lienee vaikuttanut kirjan hajanaiseen rakenteeseen. Se koostuu kahdestatoista luvusta, joissa käsitellään lähinnä brittien ja suurempien jalkapallomaiden seurojen menestystä turnauksessa. Suomalaisia seuroja ei mainita kuin sivulauseissa, ja esimerkiksi meikäläisten paras saavutus eli RoPS:in selviytyminen kahdeksan parhaan joukkoon jää kokonaan mainitsematta. Olisin itse saattanut tykätä enemmän kronologisesta aikajanasta.
Scraggilla etenee valitettavan usein yksitotisesti ottelupareja, maalintekijöitä ja lopputuloksia kerraten. Se ei ole erityisen mielenkiintoista, mutta onneksi hänellä on höysteeksi myös kiinnostavia tarinoita ja mukavia anekdootteja kerrottavanaan.
July 29, 2020
Interesting collection of stories from perhaps the most purest football tournament. The cupwinnerscup, now frozen in time, shows us more equal times, when each club had a fighting chance for european silverware.
Some highlights are the finals of the little clubs like Dinamo Tblisi and Antwerp. As an Ajax-fan, I find the chapter on the low countries a bit short, not even mentioning the historic rainy semi final against Zaragoza. And it reads like almost every final was in De Kuip.
The author had to make choices, and since he is a brit, obviously tells the most about the British clubs, next to the eastern jewels like Carl Zeiss. It’s a fitting monument for a tournament which has fascinated me since I was born next to the Olympic Stadium, just a few days after the HSV - Anderlecht final had taken place there...
Some highlights are the finals of the little clubs like Dinamo Tblisi and Antwerp. As an Ajax-fan, I find the chapter on the low countries a bit short, not even mentioning the historic rainy semi final against Zaragoza. And it reads like almost every final was in De Kuip.
The author had to make choices, and since he is a brit, obviously tells the most about the British clubs, next to the eastern jewels like Carl Zeiss. It’s a fitting monument for a tournament which has fascinated me since I was born next to the Olympic Stadium, just a few days after the HSV - Anderlecht final had taken place there...
May 25, 2020
Soccer books are a must-have in my collection. I love reading them, whatever the subject.
I have been following football since childhood. So Scragg"s book about the now-defunct Cup Winners Cup competition, which I remember vividly, was a beautiful nostalgic ride. I learnt thoroughly its unique history (no team ever won it twice in a row), its participation and remember again some memorable matches/teams.
Well-researched though its writing style is nowhere near the finesse of Parks or Wilson. Still, a very enjoyable read.
I have been following football since childhood. So Scragg"s book about the now-defunct Cup Winners Cup competition, which I remember vividly, was a beautiful nostalgic ride. I learnt thoroughly its unique history (no team ever won it twice in a row), its participation and remember again some memorable matches/teams.
Well-researched though its writing style is nowhere near the finesse of Parks or Wilson. Still, a very enjoyable read.
March 10, 2020
Really good read about the history of the tournament and some of the smaller European sides. Sadly, like the Cup Winners’ Cup it became a bit rushed and messy towards the end and, as the author shares his pro-Liverpool bias, casts a bit of a shadow with the coverage of Ferguson’s wins with Aberdeen and Man United and also downplaying what would have happened to Everton post-Heysel. First half is excellent and covers some of the long-forgotten names of European football lore.
January 4, 2022
This book covers an interesting subject and it's certainly a history worth recounting. However, I was disappointed with the overall structure of the book. It just doesn't flow as comfortably as it should do. The structuring of the book into geographical parts of Europe means that some of the chapters feel repetitive and there is a lack of chronological sequence. Overall, it left me with the sense that this was a book that was crying out for a decent editor.
August 28, 2025
It's rare that I give up on a book, but this was just so badly written. The author has just taken the Wikipedia articles for each season and grouped them by a category of his choosing. He uses a lot of words that he doesn't seem to quite understand. Others, like 'however' are used so frequently that I began counting them!
Also, a Tommy Chambers never scored for Celtic in Europe, but a Stevie Chalmers certainly did!
Also, a Tommy Chambers never scored for Celtic in Europe, but a Stevie Chalmers certainly did!
October 20, 2019
Steven is a wonderful writer. His deep knowledge on one of the best tournaments in world football is amazing. Truly something a fan of the sport needs to read. I enjoyed it. Hopefully, he writes more.
January 27, 2022
A fantastic take on the bonkers and eclectic history of the Cup Winners Cup. This one hit me right in the nostalgia. For the days when football wasn't one homogeneous, money-driven entity but different countries brought their own flavour to the mix. Those were the days.
October 19, 2020
Este libro me parece indispensable para aquellos románticos del fútbol, esos que anhelan tiempos pasados (y seguramente más simples). Si bien en lo particular me hubiera gustado que los capítulos estuvieran divididos en línea cronológica para no perderme tanto, lo cierto es que la estructura te lleva todo el tiempo a revivir el torneo, pasando de un certamen de 1965 a otro de 1992. Grandes campeones, equipos que no pudieron quedarse con el título, sorpresas, todo está aquí. Es un trabajo para leerlo de a poco y disfrutarlo.
October 13, 2019
Fantastic book! Even though I am too young to remember the tournament properly, Steven does an excellent job of allowing the reader to embrace each final.
Fantastic book! Even though I am too young to remember the tournament properly, Steven does an excellent job of allowing the reader to embrace each final. Highly recommend to all football fans.
Fantastic book! Even though I am too young to remember the tournament properly, Steven does an excellent job of allowing the reader to embrace each final. Highly recommend to all football fans.
June 4, 2023
Not bad. Chelsea won it twice but were barely mentioned which was a disappointment
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews