A lot has been made of the fact that Liverpool are being forced to play twice in two days: in the League Cup on Tuesday and the Club World Cup on Wednesday. Yet, back in the 1980s, teams played on consecutive days fairly regularly. Liverpool played league fixtures on successive days in 1980, 1982, 1983 and 1986 – and that was before they enjoyed the comfort of having a huge squad.

Some clubs have even played on consecutive days in the Premier League era. Tottenham, Crystal Palace, Norwich and Nottingham Forest fulfilled Premier League matches on 26 December and 27 December in 1994. Teams playing matches in a short space of time is one thing, but how about a player taking part in two matches during the same day? On 11 November 1987, Mark Hughes accomplished this feat. For a man who had been short of match action, it was very much a case of making up for lost time.

It was no secret that Hughes had been enduring a nightmare since his move from Manchester United to Barcelona in the summer of 1986. Whereas fellow new signing Gary Lineker hit the ground running, Hughes struggled in Spain, where his playing style was under-appreciated by fans and the media. “For the most part it was a full-blown, X-rated horror story,” wrote Hughes in his autobiography, Sparky: Barcelona, Bayern & Back.

By the start of the 1987-88 season, his days at Barcelona were numbered. Frozen out of the team and desperate for a return to Manchester United, the Welsh striker knew a move back to the UK before April 1988 would cost him thousands of pounds in tax as he had not been abroad for the full exemption period. And then came a lifeline. A loan deal with Bayern Munich until the end of the season was agreed. At last Hughes had “escaped from the physical and mental torture of his ‘imprisonment’ at Barcelona,” as Clive White wrote in the Times.

The move seemed to be a perfect fit. Hughes scored one goal and set up another on his debut against Bayer Uerdingen on Saturday 7 November 1987. “I was getting credit for things that were part and parcel of my game that would never get a mention in Spain,” he said after the game. “I was given more opportunity to get into the penalty area, which I was rarely given at Barcelona. I think I can do well there. I’d like to repay Bayern for their faith in me.”

Four days later he had a chance to repay that faith. Bayern were playing Borussia Mönchengladbach in the German Cup on the Wednesday night and general manager Uli Hoeness was desperate for Hughes to build on the momentum of his debut. Nothing unusual in that. But there was a tiny snag: on the same day as Bayern’s match, Hughes was due to play for Wales against Czechoslovakia in Prague in a crucial Euro 88 qualifier.

Hoeness was not going to let this mere inconvenience get in the way. “Soon, he was off making dozens of phone calls,” Hughes explains. “Private jets, standby cars, minute-by-minute schedules. I couldn’t believe what was happening.” Hughes, who had played just three games in two months – two of those for Wales – was now preparing for two matches on the same day.

A victory would have taken Wales to Euro 88 but, sadly for Hughes, they lost 2-0. He did not have long to mope about the situation when he returned to the dressing room. “Hustler Hoeness made sure of that,” wrote Hughes. “Outside engine revving, waiting to hurtle us to the airport, was … a Lada. I’m not kidding. Through the Czech countryside we zoomed at all of 30mph, but in that heap it felt as if we were breaking the land-speed record.” After a meandering drive he took a private jet to Munich and jumped into Hoeness’ Porsche and was whisked to the Olympic Stadium.

Two hours before, Hughes had been playing for his country in Czechoslovakia. Now, as the second half of the German Cup match began, he was warming up on the touchline in his Bayern kit. “Hoeness had deliberately not told any of the players, officials or public of his secret scheme,” Hughes recalls. “So I was smuggled into the stadium and kept in hiding upstairs until the team had gone out for the second half. He wanted maximum psychological impact – and he got it.”

Before Hughes could get on to the pitch, Gunter Thiele gave Borussia Mönchengladbach the lead. It was time for one of the most surprising substitutions in football history. “Nobody could believe it. I was supposed to be hundreds of miles away in Prague. It wasn’t possible. And nobody was more stunned than the Borussia players.”

Lothar Matthäus equalised and Hughes almost completed the fairytale by scoring a trademark volley late on. The game went to extra-time, with two goals from Michael Rummenigge giving Bayern a 3-2 win. Hughes had been on the losing side for Wales earlier in the day but he felt a lot better when he left the field in Munich. “It’s good to have the ego polished occasionally – particularly after my recent experiences,” he wrote. “That particular exercise certainly did my heart good. To consider that any club would go to such lengths for a single player was quite staggering. It didn’t just make my day, it made my season … and almost convinced me to stay for another couple of years.”

Alas, Hughes found the pull of his boyhood club was just too much to resist when Manchester United came calling at the end of the season. But the love that Bayern showed him made the decision to leave much harder. It’s not every day that clubs go so far out of their way to accommodate a player. But, on that one particular day in November 1987, Bayern Munich went the extra mile to ensure that Hughes would become part of a story that still beggars belief.

• This blog first appeared on That 1980s Sports Blog

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