EURO '84 - The Romantic Fortnight that saved the European Championship
Come back with us to a tournament that you barely experienced in the first place
This week sees us reach our second big tournament deep-dive in our chronological journey through football history from 1980 to 2000. For many, the European Championship of 1984 - the first to be marketed as a ‘Euro’ - could be distilled down to grainy highlights of the breathless semi-final between France and Portugal with John Motson close to passing out over the pictures.
With no home nations able to make it, it meant that the tournament was practically entirely packaged to football fans in the UK later on in the evening or the following morning, with only a few live matches to savour.
After the hideous mess of the previous iteration off the field and ultra cynical football on it, UEFA needed this one to resonate or the Championship as a whole might be left to wither on the vine. Fortunately, the hosts - led by Michel Platini at the peak of his powers - sparkled alongside a young Danish side that captivated a neutral audience, a strong Iberian challenge and the shock demise of the reigning champions.
Perhaps less well remembered is how incredible the qualification process was, with all seven groups containing enough drama, surprise and the frankly ridiculous that it almost deserves a series on its own!
It will have to settle for two episodes as myself and Rob welcome Aidan Williams, the author of ‘Euro 1984: The Greatest Tournament You Never Saw’, to reassess the failure of the home nations, Portuguese managerial changes working wonders, the Italian calamity and Spain’s 12 goal target set on their final game…
Then we will bring in Jonathan O’Brien, another renowned author on all matters European Championship, and others to work our way through the tournament itself with assessments of all eight finalists, the match action and its legacy before the fun of The Draft to round it all up.
Eight episodes on some old school international summer action just as this season draws to a close. What more can you ask for?
Well, if you want a wider range of football stories then we have a weekly show every Monday that picks out seven stories from the past that fall on the dates of the week ahead, from the sublime to the ridiculous and everything else in between. That is exclusive every week on our Patreon for only $3.99 a month. Given that we are heading into June, it will be the ideal top-up on your Euro ‘84 fix as we ping around all the great tournament stories of the past.
Please get involved and help us build our retro football community over there but if not, we will continue to be with you every Friday in the usual places. We have just finished our six-part look at 1983/84 where, topically, Spurs feature heavily on and off the park as well as arguably the peak of British club football on Wednesday 25 April 1984 where there was a realistic prospect of three all-British European finals. The excellent David Goldblatt joined us to discuss the LA Olympics of 1984 before a special episode with the author Dominic Hougham where we chatted about his new book on the glory years of Serie A between 1988/89 and 1998/99. So, plenty for you to catch up on if you’ve been away.
Enjoy your summer respite from the contemporaneous chaos and use your trips back in time with us to fill up before it all starts again in August.
Martyn