1) Tenerife – Real Madrid (1992-93)
To most, Tenerife is all about sun, sea, sand and sex. To Real Madrid fans, it's about lightning striking twice, life being a beach and getting royally screwed by fate. In two consecutive seasons in the early 90s, Real Madrid went to Tenerife on the final day of the La Liga season needing a victory to win the title; on both occasions they lost, with their misery compounded by the fact that the defeats gave the title to their hated rivals, Barcelona.
The first game, in 1991-92, was an epic, with a twist that Hitchcock would have been proud to call his own. Real were 2-0 up inside 10 minutes, the second a preposterous wobbling free-kick from Gheorghe Hagi. Tenerife got one back before half-time, but Real had big chances at 2-1 (and were denied by a wedgie-tight offside call). And then, from nowhere, the sky fell in on them like a sumo wrestler: midway through the second half Real gave away two shambolic goals in as many minutes and, with it, the title.
The following season it was more straightforward, as if Madrid had received a pre-match hex message and were thus resigned their fate. Tenerife were 2-0 up at half-time and held on fairly comfortably, although Madrid complained that they might have had three penalties. No matter: for them there was only the brutal, incomparable numbness of losing a title after leading going into the final day. The Tenerife tourist trade may also have suffered: surely not even the most idiosyncratic Madridista goes there for their summer holiday anymore.
2) Bolton - Arsenal 2002-06
Nemeses are never more frustrating than when they are your polar opposite: like when the girl/boy you liked at school went out with someone charming, intelligent, handsome, witty, hip and not you. It can work both ways. Under Sam Allardyce, Bolton's ugly sisters made life hell for Arsenal's belles of the ball, troubling them consistently at a time when Arsenal were wiping the floor with most opponents. The palpable arthouse/roughhouse contrast, you suspect, only made Bolton enjoy it 10 times more. No matter how far Arsenal turned up their nose, Bolton managed to get up it. Even when Arsenal retreated to the sanctuary of the moral high ground, Bolton caught up with them and gave them a boot up the hole.
At one stage Bolton won three, drew four and lost one of eight league games against Arsenal, starting with the most important of all: the 2-2 draw in April 2003 that dealt a mortal blow to Arsenal's hopes of retaining the league title. Bolton also checked the Gunners' staggering start to the 2004-05 season with a 2-2 draw at Highbury, and then won three league games in a row against them at the Reebok. By the third, Arsenal's centre was so soft that a Bolton victory was a formality, a case of dotting the Is and crunching the Southern softies. Bolton became a symbol of everything Arsenal couldn't handle – they were fibrous, northern and morally ambiguous – but the tide began to turn with an extra-time FA Cup victory at the Reebok in February 2007. Soon after Allardyce left, and Bolton returned to being the minor distraction Arsenal expected them to be in the first place.
3) West Germany – everyone
When you're as good as West Germany were, you're likely to be a bogey side for most opponents. Yet there was so much more to it than the incessant exhibition of excellence: their hold over England, Holland and France in particular was so transparent that one of the countries' greatest centre-forwards might as well have made the sort of defeatist joke with which psychologists would have had a field day. They did? Oh yeah.
England also fell back on jokes about the war, but apart from a couple of friendly victories they were consistently the Germans' weibchen between 1966 and 2001. We know all about the World Cup games and Euro 96, but many forget a simply legendary West German performance at Wembley in the Euro 72 qualifier, when they took a good England side apart in a 3-1 win.
Holland famously lost the 1974 World Cup final, with West Germany giving a model performance of how to win a football match while the Dutch were busy strutting down the catwalk. They also beat the Dutch at Euro 80 and, though that was famously reversed at Euro 88, West Germany then absolutely trounced them at Italia 90. The 2-1 scoreline looks close, but ignore that: West Germany were superior in every technical department, and their quiet dignity was in total contrast to Holland's showy, petulant nonsense. West Germany were phlegmatic; Frank Rijkaard dumped his phlegm all over Rudi Voller.
It was easy to have more sympathy for France, particularly given the amateur dentistry that took place during the 1982 World Cup semi-final, but as a consequence of that defeat they had their will broken far too easily at the same stage four years later by a painfully inferior West German side. Would the French keeper Joel Bats really have made that ghastly error against anyone else? Is the Queen German? Hang on, that doesn't work. Anyway, even when the Germans got lucky, it was generally hard to argue against the perception that they had made their own luck.
4) Chelsea – Spurs (1990-)
When Spurs last won a league game at Chelsea, the country was in the grip of recession, Betty Boo was the sexiest woman in pop and the Simpsons was the smartest show on TV. So what's new? But some things have changed since February 1990, when Gary Lineker scored the winner in a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge. Since then Chelsea's record v Spurs in all competitions is a staggering W27 D15 L3.
Even when Spurs did manage to beat Chelsea, they were usually paid back with interest. When Spurs won 5-1 in the League Cup semi-final in 2001-02, Chelsea saw the four-goal humiliation and raised Spurs two four-goal humiliations a month later. In the space of four days. When Spurs won their first league game against Chelsea for 16 years, 2-1 at White Hart Lane in November 2006, Chelsea put them out of the FA Cup on the same ground later that season.
Spurs' most recent victory, the 2-1 win in last season's League Cup final, has been followed by two draws, so maybe the curse is slowly wearing off. But there's still no sign of a win at Stamford Bridge. On the weekend of February 10/11 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and Buster Douglas beat up Mike Tyson real bad. Yet if we knew then what we know now, Spurs' win at Chelsea might have been the biggest story of them all.
5) Coventry – Liverpool (1992-1999)
Even in their glory days, Liverpool always had a peculiar habit of taking a pasting from some struggling filth. In 1986-87, for example, they were walloped 4-1 and 3-0 on Luton's plastic pitch; in 1983-84, they lost 4-0 at Coventry , with the appreciably posteriored Terry Gibson scoring a hat-trick; in 1980-81, relegated Leicester did them home and away.
Leicester, indeed, have a remarkably good head-to-head record against Liverpool (36 wins to Liverpool's 41), but that is spread over more than a century. For concentrated success, it's hard to match Coventry's hold over Liverpool in the nineties. Losing to Coventry was a pill that Liverpool had to swallow once a season, every season, for seven in a row between 1992-93 and 1999-2000.
That took in some biggies, too. In 1992-93 they were ransacked 5-1, with Micky Quinn proving that, while lightning might not always strike twice, corpulent knackers who play centre-forward for Coventry can. In 1995-96, Coventry's 1-0 win at Highfield Road formally ended Liverpool's title chase, three days after the delirium of that 4-3 win over Newcastle. On the same day, April 6, a year later, Dion Dublin's last-minute winner at Anfield, gifted hideously by PlayStation era David James, ruined an even stronger title challenge (this was the table going into the game). Then a year later they put them out of the FA Cup at Anfield. In April 2001, Liverpool's win all but ensured Coventry's relegation; it was the best way to ensure they wouldn't have to face them again.
6) Wimbledon – Everton (1987-1991)
In Wimbledon's gory days, new recruits would be subject to the Crazy Gang initiation, which would vary from having clothes burned (everyone), having Wellington boots filled with shaving cream (Egil Olsen), or a quiet hello and for God's sake don't make eye contact (Mick Harford). In 1986 Wimbledon were the new boys in the top flight, but that didn't stop them giving everyone else a special welcome, and a taste of how things were going to be round here from now on. They especially enjoyed bloodying the nose of the Big Five – Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Spurs – and had a particular hold on the men from Goodison Park.
After losing their first two league games to the champions-elect Everton, Wimbledon gave them a nasty beating in a famous, televised FA Cup tie on a thoroughly grim Sunday afternoon at Plough Lane. Mutual animosity grew (there's a right old tear-up after 1:50 of this video). But it was Wimbledon who tended to land the first blow, and have the last laugh: after that cup win they held sway over Everton (a very good side in those days, lest we forget), winning four and drawing four of the next eight league games. By then, Everton were well and truly initiated in the ways of the Crazy Gang.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/10/1
do you know some other examples?
To most, Tenerife is all about sun, sea, sand and sex. To Real Madrid fans, it's about lightning striking twice, life being a beach and getting royally screwed by fate. In two consecutive seasons in the early 90s, Real Madrid went to Tenerife on the final day of the La Liga season needing a victory to win the title; on both occasions they lost, with their misery compounded by the fact that the defeats gave the title to their hated rivals, Barcelona.
The first game, in 1991-92, was an epic, with a twist that Hitchcock would have been proud to call his own. Real were 2-0 up inside 10 minutes, the second a preposterous wobbling free-kick from Gheorghe Hagi. Tenerife got one back before half-time, but Real had big chances at 2-1 (and were denied by a wedgie-tight offside call). And then, from nowhere, the sky fell in on them like a sumo wrestler: midway through the second half Real gave away two shambolic goals in as many minutes and, with it, the title.
The following season it was more straightforward, as if Madrid had received a pre-match hex message and were thus resigned their fate. Tenerife were 2-0 up at half-time and held on fairly comfortably, although Madrid complained that they might have had three penalties. No matter: for them there was only the brutal, incomparable numbness of losing a title after leading going into the final day. The Tenerife tourist trade may also have suffered: surely not even the most idiosyncratic Madridista goes there for their summer holiday anymore.
2) Bolton - Arsenal 2002-06
Nemeses are never more frustrating than when they are your polar opposite: like when the girl/boy you liked at school went out with someone charming, intelligent, handsome, witty, hip and not you. It can work both ways. Under Sam Allardyce, Bolton's ugly sisters made life hell for Arsenal's belles of the ball, troubling them consistently at a time when Arsenal were wiping the floor with most opponents. The palpable arthouse/roughhouse contrast, you suspect, only made Bolton enjoy it 10 times more. No matter how far Arsenal turned up their nose, Bolton managed to get up it. Even when Arsenal retreated to the sanctuary of the moral high ground, Bolton caught up with them and gave them a boot up the hole.
At one stage Bolton won three, drew four and lost one of eight league games against Arsenal, starting with the most important of all: the 2-2 draw in April 2003 that dealt a mortal blow to Arsenal's hopes of retaining the league title. Bolton also checked the Gunners' staggering start to the 2004-05 season with a 2-2 draw at Highbury, and then won three league games in a row against them at the Reebok. By the third, Arsenal's centre was so soft that a Bolton victory was a formality, a case of dotting the Is and crunching the Southern softies. Bolton became a symbol of everything Arsenal couldn't handle – they were fibrous, northern and morally ambiguous – but the tide began to turn with an extra-time FA Cup victory at the Reebok in February 2007. Soon after Allardyce left, and Bolton returned to being the minor distraction Arsenal expected them to be in the first place.
3) West Germany – everyone
When you're as good as West Germany were, you're likely to be a bogey side for most opponents. Yet there was so much more to it than the incessant exhibition of excellence: their hold over England, Holland and France in particular was so transparent that one of the countries' greatest centre-forwards might as well have made the sort of defeatist joke with which psychologists would have had a field day. They did? Oh yeah.
England also fell back on jokes about the war, but apart from a couple of friendly victories they were consistently the Germans' weibchen between 1966 and 2001. We know all about the World Cup games and Euro 96, but many forget a simply legendary West German performance at Wembley in the Euro 72 qualifier, when they took a good England side apart in a 3-1 win.
Holland famously lost the 1974 World Cup final, with West Germany giving a model performance of how to win a football match while the Dutch were busy strutting down the catwalk. They also beat the Dutch at Euro 80 and, though that was famously reversed at Euro 88, West Germany then absolutely trounced them at Italia 90. The 2-1 scoreline looks close, but ignore that: West Germany were superior in every technical department, and their quiet dignity was in total contrast to Holland's showy, petulant nonsense. West Germany were phlegmatic; Frank Rijkaard dumped his phlegm all over Rudi Voller.
It was easy to have more sympathy for France, particularly given the amateur dentistry that took place during the 1982 World Cup semi-final, but as a consequence of that defeat they had their will broken far too easily at the same stage four years later by a painfully inferior West German side. Would the French keeper Joel Bats really have made that ghastly error against anyone else? Is the Queen German? Hang on, that doesn't work. Anyway, even when the Germans got lucky, it was generally hard to argue against the perception that they had made their own luck.
4) Chelsea – Spurs (1990-)
When Spurs last won a league game at Chelsea, the country was in the grip of recession, Betty Boo was the sexiest woman in pop and the Simpsons was the smartest show on TV. So what's new? But some things have changed since February 1990, when Gary Lineker scored the winner in a 2-1 win at Stamford Bridge. Since then Chelsea's record v Spurs in all competitions is a staggering W27 D15 L3.
Even when Spurs did manage to beat Chelsea, they were usually paid back with interest. When Spurs won 5-1 in the League Cup semi-final in 2001-02, Chelsea saw the four-goal humiliation and raised Spurs two four-goal humiliations a month later. In the space of four days. When Spurs won their first league game against Chelsea for 16 years, 2-1 at White Hart Lane in November 2006, Chelsea put them out of the FA Cup on the same ground later that season.
Spurs' most recent victory, the 2-1 win in last season's League Cup final, has been followed by two draws, so maybe the curse is slowly wearing off. But there's still no sign of a win at Stamford Bridge. On the weekend of February 10/11 1990, Nelson Mandela was released from prison and Buster Douglas beat up Mike Tyson real bad. Yet if we knew then what we know now, Spurs' win at Chelsea might have been the biggest story of them all.
5) Coventry – Liverpool (1992-1999)
Even in their glory days, Liverpool always had a peculiar habit of taking a pasting from some struggling filth. In 1986-87, for example, they were walloped 4-1 and 3-0 on Luton's plastic pitch; in 1983-84, they lost 4-0 at Coventry , with the appreciably posteriored Terry Gibson scoring a hat-trick; in 1980-81, relegated Leicester did them home and away.
Leicester, indeed, have a remarkably good head-to-head record against Liverpool (36 wins to Liverpool's 41), but that is spread over more than a century. For concentrated success, it's hard to match Coventry's hold over Liverpool in the nineties. Losing to Coventry was a pill that Liverpool had to swallow once a season, every season, for seven in a row between 1992-93 and 1999-2000.
That took in some biggies, too. In 1992-93 they were ransacked 5-1, with Micky Quinn proving that, while lightning might not always strike twice, corpulent knackers who play centre-forward for Coventry can. In 1995-96, Coventry's 1-0 win at Highfield Road formally ended Liverpool's title chase, three days after the delirium of that 4-3 win over Newcastle. On the same day, April 6, a year later, Dion Dublin's last-minute winner at Anfield, gifted hideously by PlayStation era David James, ruined an even stronger title challenge (this was the table going into the game). Then a year later they put them out of the FA Cup at Anfield. In April 2001, Liverpool's win all but ensured Coventry's relegation; it was the best way to ensure they wouldn't have to face them again.
6) Wimbledon – Everton (1987-1991)
In Wimbledon's gory days, new recruits would be subject to the Crazy Gang initiation, which would vary from having clothes burned (everyone), having Wellington boots filled with shaving cream (Egil Olsen), or a quiet hello and for God's sake don't make eye contact (Mick Harford). In 1986 Wimbledon were the new boys in the top flight, but that didn't stop them giving everyone else a special welcome, and a taste of how things were going to be round here from now on. They especially enjoyed bloodying the nose of the Big Five – Arsenal, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Spurs – and had a particular hold on the men from Goodison Park.
After losing their first two league games to the champions-elect Everton, Wimbledon gave them a nasty beating in a famous, televised FA Cup tie on a thoroughly grim Sunday afternoon at Plough Lane. Mutual animosity grew (there's a right old tear-up after 1:50 of this video). But it was Wimbledon who tended to land the first blow, and have the last laugh: after that cup win they held sway over Everton (a very good side in those days, lest we forget), winning four and drawing four of the next eight league games. By then, Everton were well and truly initiated in the ways of the Crazy Gang.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/sep/10/1
do you know some other examples?