1) Secret matches

Littlewoods started the first football pools in 1923, Zetters joining them in 1933, and the idea swiftly took off. By 1933 Britons were gambling £5m a year on the pools, rising to £9m by 1934. That year the government banned pools entirely in their Betting and Lotteries Act, only to back down in the face of a public outcry. Unchecked, their popularity continued to rise, with Britain’s annual spend reaching £20m by 1936.

At the time football clubs themselves were far from successful profit-making enterprises, and the idea of other people making lots of money from their game was always likely to hit a nerve at some point. In early 1936, with all 44 league clubs boasting a combined weekly gate of £48,000 while pools companies raked in some £800,000 each Saturday, the nerve was well and truly struck. After paying out their prize money the pools companies’ profit was still greater than the entire turnover of all league clubs combined. The players still laboured under the restrictions of a maximum wage, set at the time at £8 a week during the season and £6 in the summer; thus the 968 involved in league football that year were paid each week in total no more than £7,744; the pools companies were raking in a hundred times this amount, and the larger ones made £8,000 in pure profit each week.

According to the pools promoters, in early 1936 the League claimed copyright over the fixture list and demanded a large sum to allow them to use it. The promoters offered a lesser sum, and negotiations eventually broke down. The League denied this, insisting it was acting only to protect the purity of its sport. Whatever the motivations, the League called a special general meeting at the Midland Hotel in Manchester on 20 February, at which they passed, by a margin of 65 votes to 12 (with eight abstentions), a motion asserting “that this meeting of representatives of League clubs is of the opinion that football pool betting is a menace to the game and pledges itself to make every effort possible to suppress the evil”.

CE Sutcliffe, president of the Lancashire FA, proposed a possible solution. The only way to deal with the menace, which operated outside the auspices of the league and required no more than a list of fixtures in order to do business, was to deny them these fixtures. They should, he suggested, rip up the existing fixture list, reschedule all remaining games and make these fixtures completely secret, even from the clubs involved. It was agreed that this was a jolly good ruse.

Staff check football pools coupons at the Littlewood’s factory in Liverpool, 1947. Photograph: Getty Images/Popperfoto Creative

“It was decided,” read the minutes, “that, after today, the whole of the remaining fixtures … as arranged in all divisions of the league, shall be cancelled.” Instead, clubs would know in advance only if they were to play at home or away, and “the League Management Committee will indicate to clubs on Thursdays their opponents for the following Saturday”. Just in case this wasn’t enough, “the clubs agreed to give the League Management Committee plenary powers to take such action as they think fit to put an end to football pools betting”.

Their decision was immediately leaked to the press, and fury and controversy resulted. Leeds United’s chairman, Alderman A Masser, led the critics, with Sunderland swiftly following. Manchester City released a statement insisting that “they are not in agreement at all with the proposals come to and at any future meeting which may be held their representative will be instructed to oppose them in every shape and form”. Their chairman, R Smith, told the Guardian that “we are not only opposed to the alteration of the fixtures, but we do not agree that pool betting is a menace to the game”. They were followed by Bristol Rovers, Brentford, Everton, Plymouth and Charlton. “I am astounded at the reaction of some of the directors who went to last week’s meeting,” countered JW Gibson, chairman of Manchester United. “They knew very well what they were going to the meeting for and what they were voting for, so that it is perfectly clear that they were not being stampeded. [They] have no right to grumble at the committee now that they find what they have done is not popular.”

The League insisted the plan would go ahead for the weekend of 29 February. “You can take it from me that is quite definite,” said the vice-president, FW Rinder. The secretary, F Howarth, asserted that to inform the media of forthcoming fixtures “would defeat our object”, and that to ensure secrecy “only those [clubs] travelling a long distance will receive telegrams” telling them their weekend opponents on a Thursday. The remainder would be getting the information by post on Friday, all being well, and in any case being told “only the one club they are playing”, so no one source could provide a full fixture list.

The Football Pools Promoters’ Association held a meeting of their own on 26 February, and announced that they had a plan to circumvent the league’s plot – if not any details about what it entailed. “A plan was devised which will overcome any alterations which may be made in the fixtures,” they said. “The promoters are quite satisfied that they have found a satisfactory solution calculated to meet all contingencies.” The League put out a counter-statement alleging “a breach of confidence of some member of the meeting [of 20 February]” which had led to “the effectiveness of the scheme” being “at least partially impaired” and called another meeting, for the following week.

On Thursday 27 February the first few clubs found out who they were to be playing that weekend. Preston, who thought they had a free weekend, were to host Sunderland, who had been due to visit Sheffield Wednesday. Southampton, who had been planning to travel to Port Vale, were told to head for Bradford City instead, and so forth. That weekend these secret fixtures were played out – at least outside London – in front of relatively minuscule crowds. Newcastle, with an average gate of 22,000, had only 8,000 spectators for the visit of Norwich; Aston Villa’s attendance fell from an average 35,000 to just 15,000 as they beat Liverpool 3-0; Masser, whose Leeds team lost 3-0 in blizzard conditions at Sheffield Wednesday in front of just 6,000 people (9,000 down on the average gate) admitted “the weather conditions were appalling” but insisted that many fans “object to interference with their liberties”.

Masser invited representatives of all league clubs to a meeting on 2 March to discuss the issue; in the end 36 sent delegates, of whom 26 voted in favour of a resolution expressing “its loyalty to the League Management Committee” while calling for “immediate restoration of the fixture list”. The League called yet another meeting, this time for 9 March, while pressing ahead with plans for a second weekend of secret fixtures – only this time with added secrecy: “If you are told anything during the week you can take it you are having your leg pulled,” their president, Charles Sutcliffe, told journalists. He called on the Home Secretary to ensure “that legislation is effected with all speed to eliminate pool betting on football”. In an editorial, the Times also asked for a parliamentary debate, lamenting an “issue that is reducing the most popular of all open-air entertainments to chaos and public ridicule”.

Comedian Bruce Forsyth, right, presents a cheque to miner Keith Howard Nicholson and his wife, Vivian, after they won the Littlewoods Pools in 1961. Photograph: Ron Case/Getty Images

The following week, after a second round of secret matches, the League officially rescinded their earlier resolution and decided to revert as closely as possible to the original fixture list. And in April Parliament did indeed debate whether pools betting should be banned, a bill proposed by Richard Russell, MP for Eddisbury. “It is not good for the State that there should come into existence societies and companies which make private gain through encouraging anti-social habits of excessive betting and gambling,” he said. Its rise would lead to problems keeping the game of football clean, and what’s more, “of all the things that lead to deterioration of character, gambling is the worst. Even drunkenness has none of the hopelessness of gambling.”

Labour’s James Barr seconded the motion, insisting that in his opinion it was the duty of the house “not to humour the poor in their poverty but to lead them out of it”, and that though “workers should have some surplus of income left for entertainment, it was for Parliament to see that whatever surplus they had was spent in pure, noble and innocuous ways”.

After some light-hearted debate – JohnMcGovern, the Scottish socialist, asserted that “it appears that men get into trouble mostly because of women, but nobody has suggested the abolition of women” – the house voted against the motion by 287 votes to 24, instead agreeing with Alan Lennox-Boyd’s insistence that “the proposals of this Bill are an unjustifiable interference with private liberty”.

The league’s dalliance with secret fixtures was over, and the popularity of the pools continued to rise. Their success was never without controversy – in 1949 the church called for their complete prohibition as “they constitute a menace to social and personal life and are a form of exploitation for which there is no justification”. There would be no prohibition, and the popularity of the pools has since been checked only by the advent of another regular low-stake government-endorsed chance-based gambling opportunity in the form of the National Lottery. SB

2) Tottenham and Arsenal at Alexandra Palace



These days, Alexandra Palace is a beloved public entertainment venue, host to concerts, exhibitions and enthusiastically refreshed chaps in polo shirts curiously singing about Yaya and Kolo Touré while darts happens in the background. Back in the late 1970s, it was in a state of disrepair, with occasional concerts and events (including the Great British Beer Festival) still held there but the grounds and building cost the tax-payers around £620,000 to maintain, leading to frantic and often angry debates about the future use of the ”people’s palace”.

Various proposals were mooted, including one set of whispers that it could be the site of another Disneyland. But perhaps even more outlandish than becoming the home of giant talking mice was the suggestion that the old palace could be levelled and in its place built a shared stadium for Tottenham and Arsenal, who even nearly four decades ago had eyes on life beyond Highbury and White Hart Lane.

The idea of shared stadia is a perfectly sensible and rational one, in theory. Teams in Italy have managed it for years, in America not only are different teams hosted in one place but different sports, and even in England sides have (usually out of short-term necessity) coped with bunking up together. It’s far from a popular idea though, with a club’s home forming part of their identity, and even those Italian sides who have cohabited for years are now moving towards their own individual grounds – Juventus and Torino now have their own places after sharing for years, while Milan have been planning to leave the San Siro for a while, even if that idea is currently on hold.

Therefore, perhaps not surprisingly, when the idea for Spurs and Arsenal to share was mooted in the 1977-1978 season, it was welcomed in some quarters. “This imaginative move by Arsenal and Spurs should set the ball rolling for the rest of football in England,” parped the Daily Express when they reported the news under the headline “ARSENAL HOTSPURS!”, describing the plans as “visionary” and even suggesting that Liverpool and Manchester clubs should “bury the hatchet” and move in together.

The mooted plans at Ally Pally would not just be a place for two teams to play football in a 75,000-seater stadium, but a £20m “multi-sports complex” that could have taken in ice skating, an events hall, shops, restaurants and myriad other money-making opportunities. It was even suggested that it could also be the new home of the England team, with Wembley something of a crumbly mess in which a trip to the lavatory required waders, even in the late 1970s.

Ally Pally, sans monorail. Photograph: Dinendra Haria/Rex/Shutterstock

One problem, as many who have been to Alexandra Palace will testify, is that it’s sometimes not the easiest place in the world to get to, particularly if a whole football crowd would be rocking up, and also for fans whose ground would suddenly be moving some miles away, but don’t worry friends – they thought of that. As well as a spur to the Piccadilly Line from the nearby Wood Green station, the plans included a monorail, ferrying commuters from Finsbury Park or central London up the hill to the new stadium, a futuristic mode of transport that would surely have superseded mere trains as soon as it was put in place, particularly if Lyle Lanley was put in charge.

The response from the authorities was not quite as enthusiastic, though. “We would certainly not be providing any of the cash,” sniffed Horace Cutler, leader of the Greater London Council in December 1977 while chairman of the GLC, Lawrence Bains, was even more emphatic. “I shall fight it at every stage of the council,” he said.

Indeed, the plans were quashed in early 1979, deemed too unpopular and impractical. “The reaction of local residents and local politicians of all parties was instantaneous, and totally adverse,” said Cutler, going on to cite concerns that a largely football free area would suddenly be overrun with hooligans swinging cudgels around their heads and baring their bottoms at pearl-clutching locals. “Although it is true that if you can anticipate a problem such as hooliganism you can use design or engineering to forestall it,” Cutler continued, “nevertheless the probable social and environmental consequences of a stadium at the Palace are untenable.”

Of course it would have been an entirely absurd plan, but it could’ve been pretty good fun. Particularly if they really did build that monorail. NM

3) Pre-match fireworks

The crowd in a stadium for a football match can all be relied upon to have one thing in common: they already like football. Administrators should take note of this. There really is no need to divert them with loud music and flashes and bangs before kick-off: they will already be excited. They like football. You are about to give them football. Job very much done. Add some protection from the elements, semi-adequate toilet facilities, the provision of hot drinks and vaguely sober ticket pricing and everyone’s deliriously happy. This is not a particularly tough crowd.

For some, though, this isn’t enough. They want more. They want bigger, brighter, better. They want to set off semi-controlled explosions within yards of thousands of vaguely cramped, effectively trapped humans, in the hope that some might, verbally or mentally, say “ooh!”, before forgetting that it ever happened and concentrating on what they were actually there for.

Smoke from fireworks at Wembley as Bradford City and Swansea come out for the 2013 Capital One Cup final. Photograph: Tom Jenkins for the Guardian

There can be no logical justification for this practice. It might be reasonable to arrange for a few fireworks to follow the game, in case the football itself proves underwhelming. A club that promises, for example, that every goalless draw will be followed by a lavish display of pyrotechnics may well find it a popular offer. Before kick-off, however, there really is no need.

Back in the early noughties, Wolverhampton Wanderers liked to welcome their players on to the pitch through two banks of fire. As they came out, to their left and to their right three flares would fire upwards at slightly different angles, creating a kind of arc of burning air. So happy were they about it, they did it for a little over two full seasons. It was not an unpleasant effect, it was just unnecessary.

And also dangerous. Before a game against Newcastle in December 2003 something went wrong. Five of the flares shot upwards but one sped sideways, straight into the Billy Wright Stand, where it hit a fan, Denise Butler, in the face. There was no comedy here: she spent two nights in hospital after surgery to clean the wound; suffered “mild” post-traumatic stress disorder, and was left permanently disfigured, with nerve damage and a broken cheekbone. The firm contracted to organise the display was later fined £10,000 and ordered to pay £6,000 in costs. “At the end of the day they’ve been fined,” she said, “but it’s not going to bring my cheekbone back. Hopefully there won’t be any more fireworks at football matches.”

The world of sport did not really pay attention. In 2014 a firework let off before a rugby union match between New Zealand and Australia at Eden Park sent shrapnel flying into the crowd, with one fan, Cecilia Wang, admitted to hospital. “She was just screaming, she was pouring with blood, I tried to hold her cut but the blood wouldn’t stop, it was like opening tap water, it kept coming out,” reported her husband, Jimmy. When it comes to football, fireworks of the figurative sort are surely more than enough. SB

A part of the ill-fated pre-match firework display is removed from the pitch before Wolves v Newcastle at Molineux in December 2003. Photograph: Ross Kinnaird/Getty Images

4) Not proofreading the laws

Since 1886 the International Football Association Board has met once a year to consider possible changes to the laws of the game. Frequently it has done little more than tweak the wording here and there to make everything a little clearer. For example, when it met on 14 June 1924, it added a footnote to the offside law, stating that “it is not a breach of the law for a player to be in an off-side position, but only when in that position he interferes with an opponent or with the play. If a player who is in an off-side position advances towards an opponent or the ball and in so doing causes the play to be affected he should be penalised”, in so doing prompting debating and head-scratching about the precise definition of “interfering with play” that continues to this day.

While it was at it, it added a rule banning members of the opposing team from encroaching within 10 yards of the ball before a free-kick is taken, meaning a minor redrafting of Law 10, and clarifying the possibility of scoring direct from a corner, which forced a few tweaks to Law 11. This it did, and thought no more of it. At least for a while.

That November, in a match between Everton and Arsenal at Goodison Park, the home side won an early corner. The winger Sam Chedgzoy jogged over to take it. But instead of crossing the ball into the box, Chedgzoy ran with it into the Arsenal penalty area and shot just wide of goal. Later in the game Arsenal’s Jock Rutherford tried a similar trick, and though he also failed to score, the referee allowed play to continue on both occasions. “Law 10 definitely states that the ‘kick-off and the goal kick shall be a free-kick within the meaning of this law’ but makes no reference to the corner kick,” explained the Express. “The referee in this game afterwards stated that there was nothing in the laws to prevent a player adopting such a course.” On the same day Preston’s George Harrison tried to dribble from the corner spot, only for the referee to blow his whistle. The president of the Football League, J McKenna, complained that “advantage is being taken of a looseness in the rule which was never contemplated by those who framed it.”

The following week the FA released a statement. “At a meeting of the International Football Association Board held on 14 June 1924, the words ‘corner kick’ were inadvertently deleted from the law,” it admitted. “At a meeting of the Board to be held in June 1925 it will be proposed that the words be reinserted. In the meantime officials of the game and the players are instructed that the corner kick must be deemed a free kick within law 10, and that the kicker shall not play the ball a second time until it has been played by another player.” Still, it was fun while it lasted, and the International Board has never again forgotten to double-check the small print. SB

5) Three points for an away win

The theory behind awarding three points for a win rather than two is fine. A greater reward for positive play, things can be changed more readily by a single victory, and it’s been that way in England since the early 1980s. Whether it’s actually made much difference is open for debate, but you’d struggle to argue that it’s had a negative impact on football. At worst one could shrug and wonder exactly who cares.

That’s if you award three points for every win, of course. After the rest of English football upped the stakes from two to three points per success in 1981, the Alliance Premier League (now the National League; the Conference to you and me) decided that was all too simple, and instead opted for a slightly different wheeze. For a home win, it stuck with the old tally of two points for a win, but away victories were awarded the new total of three. The discrepancy was designed to encourage more attacking play in away games, but what it actually produced was a faintly absurd result whereby the teams that won the title in 1984 and 1985 wouldn’t have done so had they followed the system of pretty much every organised football league in the known universe.

In 1983-84, the first year of the new rules, Maidstone United squeaked their way to the top prize by a single point, that extra point coming thanks to one more away win than runners-up Nuneaton. Had three points been awarded for home wins as well, of which Nuneaton had two more, then it was they who would have lifted the title. The following campaign was even more absurd: Nuneaton once again finished second, and once again would have been above the champions (Wealdstone), but it was actually fourth – fourth! – placed Bath City that would’ve finished top under an equitable system.

The 1984-85 Alliance Premier League table. Photograph: Wikipedia

The following year Enfield sashayed away with the title by such a margin that it wouldn’t have made a difference, but at the foot of the table another team were stiffed. Dagenham and Wycombe Wanderers finished the season level on points, the latter dropping into the Isthmian League on goal difference, but had three points for all wins been in place, they would have finished above the Daggers by a point. The season afterwards the Alliance became the Conference, automatic promotion to the Football League replaced the archaic election system and Nuneaton received another kick in the pants, relegated for financial jiggery-pokery, and the unequal points system was scrapped, not officially on the basis that it was bloody stupid, but it might as well have been. NM

6) Automatic Champions League places for the big boys

At this stage all that exists are rumours. Perhaps the suggestion, mooted in January, that the big boys of European football would somehow manage to swing things so that they automatically qualify for the Champions League no matter where they actually finished in the league, are bunkum. But you can bet your life that some bright spark in a sharp suit and a “Hooray for free-market capitalism!” badge will have sat up and thought “Oh, what a good idea!”

It does depend on how you look at these things, really. If you think of football as merely an unscripted light entertainment TV show – a little like Noel’s House Party without the gunging – then it probably makes sense to ensure the most popular clubs play in the most high-profile competition every year. But if you like to think of the sport as something competitive, where you could start the same game involving the same teams and the same players 100 times and get 100 different results, then simply sticking the most famous shirts into an elite competition changes the nature of everything, away from the sport that has been the most popular in the world for a century.

“What would Manchester United argue: did we create soccer or did Leicester create [it]?” said Charlie Stillitano, pal of Sir Alex Ferguson, José Mourinho and assorted football power-brokers, in March. “Let’s call it the money pot created by soccer and the fandom around the world. Who has had more of an integral role, Manchester United or Leicester? It’s a wonderful, wonderful story – but you could see it from Manchester United’s point of view, too.”

Well you could if you really wanted to, but if so we should probably just close down the sport, hand whichever team makes the most money a trophy at the end of every year and go do something else. NM