Over the years, football tournaments come and go. Sometimes their popularity wanes and the powers that be decide to bring it to an end, while other times they are replaced or swallowed up by a larger or newer competition which renders it redundant.
The world’s oldest national football competition, the FA Cup, is still going strong in its 148th year, but few other tournaments – well, none in fact – have enjoyed that kind of longevity, and the world’s oldest international tournament – the British Home Championships – were abolished after 100 years in existence in 1984.
Here are 7 of my personal favourite extinct football tournaments:
7. Anglo-Italian Cup
The Anglo-Italian Cup was a bit of a car crash at times if we’re honest, but it threw up some brilliant and bizarre results and enjoys a bit of a cult status as such. Back in the 1960’s, both Queens Park Rangers and Swindon Town won the League Cup, but unlike the tournaments other winners that didn’t give them Inter-Cities Fairs Cup qualification, since UEFA didn’t allow third tier teams to compete in the tournament.
In response, the FA set up games between the League Cup winners and the winners of the Coppa Italia, in a single two-legged final that was known as the Anglo-Italian League Cup. That tournament lasted three years – later making a return in 1975 – but more importantly it spurned the larger Anglo-Italian Cup. First contested in 1970, the tournament would play host to six English clubs and six Italian clubs. The teams were split into three groups of four teams, each containing two English and two Italian clubs.
The English club and the Italian club with the most points in their respective leagues would then face each other in a one-legged final. In the first year, Italy were represented by Napoli, Juventus, Lanerossi, Roma, Fiorentina and Lazio, whilst the English were represented by Sheffield Wednesday, Swindon Town, Middlesbrough, West Brom, Sunderland and Wolves. Incredibly, it would be Swindon who won the first final, beating Napoli 3-0 in a final in Naples that had to be abandoned on 79 minutes due to disturbances caused by the Napoli fans.
Violence would become a recurring theme of the short-lived Anglo-Italian Cup, started in 1970 and abolished in 1973, although it did later return equally briefly in an amateur format. In 1971, it was Blackpool who reigned supreme over Bologna in the final, in 1972 the Italians won their only title, with Roma defeating Blackpool in the final this time, and in the last tournament in 1973, Fiorentina were dispatched 2-1 by Newcastle United.
6. UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup
UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup Final Chelsea v Stuttgart, held at Råsunda Stadium. Chelsea won the match 1-0, thanks to a Gianfranco Zola goal, 13th May 1998.
One of the better known tournaments in this seven, since it was only abolished in 1999 and was a major European competition, the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup was absorbed by the UEFA Cup just before the turn of the millenium, but that was a shame in many respects. Originally the European Cup Winners’ Cup but later renamed the UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup, for those of you who don’t know, this tournament did what it said on the tin. It was a European-wide competition for the most recent winners of each of the domestic knockout competitions.
What made the Cup Winners’ Cup great was the fact that it was always a straight knockout from start to finish, none of this group stage nonsense… Fiorentina beat Rangers in the first final in 1961, the only time the tournament ever had a two-legged final, and the popularity of what was initially a pilot tournament convinced UEFA to roll it out the following year.
Barcelona were the most successful team in the Cup Winners’ Cup, winning the tournament four times, whilst Anderlecht, AC Milan, Dynamo Kyiv and Chelsea all won it twice, but no team ever retained the title. This great tournament was ultimately killed by the expansion of the Champions League, which began to hoover-up all the bigger clubs as it allowed multiple participants from a single nation. As such, the popularity and prestige of the Cup Winners’ Cup began to diminish, until it was finally abandoned in 1999.
5. Afro-Asian Cup of Nations
The Afro-Asian Cup of Nations was, as its name suggests, was an inter-continental international tournament contested by teams from Africa and Asia. Founded in 1978, the tournament pitted the winners of either the Asian Cup or the Asian Games up against the winners of the African Cup of Nations. That meant just two teams entered the tournament each year, and they would face off in a two-legged final to determine the Afro-Asian champions.
The tournament was pretty regularly abandoned or cancelled due to political and civil unrest, and would ultimately end altogether due to political reasons as well. In the first final, Iran beat Ghana 3-0 in Ghana, but didn’t win the trophy since they were unable to host the second leg due to political problems in Iran. The 1989 championships were cancelled, the 2005 championships were cancelled and the 1997 championships were delayed two years, ultimately resulting in the originally arranged 1999 championship being cancelled as well.
Japan were the only team to win the tournament twice, whilst Algeria, Cameroon, Nigeria, South Africa and South Korea all won it once. The competition was originally cancelled in the year 2000 by the Confederation of African Football who were angered over the Asian Football Confederation supporting Germany’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup over South Africa’s, however it did return briefly for a single final in 2007. There was also an Afro-Asian Club Championship which ran from 1986 to 2000, with Egyptian giants Zamalek being the only side to record multiple titles.
4. Mitropa Cup
BORDEAUX, FRANCE – JUNE 14:Adam Nagy of Hungary controls the ball under pressure of Zlatko Junuzovic of Austria during the UEFA EURO 2016 Group F match between Austria and Hungary at Stade…
Born out of the Austro-Hungarian Challenge Cup and a major precursor to the European Cup, the Mitropa Cup was a fantastic football tournament that a lot of people don’t know about. The Mitropa Cup was founded in 1927 and looked to expand beyond just the former Austo-Hungarian nations, bringing in all of the central European nations, and its official name was the Central European Cup.
This meant the tournament comprised of all of the best European clubs with the exception of the British teams, since central Europe was the powerhouse of the game at the time. Hungarian greats Vasas were by far the most successful team at the tournament, winning six titles, whilst Bologna and Sparta Prague were joint second with three apiece.
Although the Mitropa Cup wasn’t actually discontinued up until 1992, it had multiple name changes after the Second World War and was largely replaced in terms of prestige and importance in central Europe by the larger European Cup/Champions League which brought in teams from all of Europe. Nevertheless, the Mitropa Cup is a hugely significant competition in the history of European football, and those winners in the first two decades could arguably justify having a star on their shirt for their Mitropa glories.
3. Masters Football
This is a bit of an unusual inclusion given that the rest are all professional club or international competitions, while Masters Football was essentially exhibition stuff for veterans over the age of 35. In spite of that, I suspect I’m not the only one who misses watching the old pros take to that weird blue pitch and lock horns on Sky Sports. Personally I used to watch heaps of Masters Football when I was younger, and I thought it was brilliant.
Masters Football was, originally at least, a seasonal competition made up of regional heats and then a national final hosted across the UK, often at ice hockey stadiums. From Ian Rush and Bryan Robson to Steve McManaman and Paul Gascoigne, some great players – and some rather more mediocre ones – competed in the Masters finals which ran from 2000 to 2011. Liverpool, Leicester and Rangers were the three most successful sides, each winning the title twice.
The 11-year run reportedly came to an end due to a lack of interest not on the screens but at the finals themselves, with attendance apparently on the wane. Football Masters, the company, does actually still exist, with a fairly small Twitter account and a website that looks like it has come straight out of 1999, but the games are mainly restricted to Asia where attendances must be slightly larger, and the company itself seems to be headquartered in Singapore. Still, Football Masters as we knew it no longer exists, and I for one miss it.
2. Roca Cup
Ipanema beach front and beach scenes. Barraca belonging to Edna and Sandra says the banner marking the place to rent beach chairs, umbrellas and an ice-chest for cold drinks. A Brazilian…
The Copa Julio Argentino Roca, better known as the Roca Cup in English, was the brainchild of future Argentinian president Julio Argentino Roca, although he was serving as the Argentine ambassador to Brazil at the time. Football was growing in popularity in South America in 1913 when Roca proposed the idea, and he felt a healthy rivalry between Argentina and Brazil could encourage the sports popularity and development.
The tournament would be an incredible dysfunctional one with no real regularity at all. The two nations played each other seven times in the tournament in 1939 and 1940 alone, despite having not played in the competition since 1923 before that, and then not meeting again in it until 1945 afterwards. Brazil won the first two additions before a spell of dominance for Argentina, but Brazil would come out on top once again every year from 1945 onwards, except for in 1971 which would provide the tournaments only tie.
In total, Brazil won 8 titles to Argentina’s 4, with the tournaments final edition coming in 1976. No official reason was given for the Roca Cup ending, but presumably it was considered unnecessary alongside the Copa America and World Cup, with the Brazil vs Argentina rivalry hardly needing any encouragement anymore. Brazilian legend Pele actually made his first two international appearances in the Roca Cup, on July 7th and July 10th 1957. Unsurprisingly, the 16-year-old scored in both games, becoming Brazil’s youngest ever goal scorer – a record which still stands over 50 years on.
1. Watney Cup
It may only have spanned a meagre three years, but the Watney Cup has to go down as one of the greatest defunct football competitions for its sheer madness. Contested only in 1970, 1971, 1972 and 1973, the Watney Cup was played at the start of a new season and was made up of the two teams who had scored the most goals in each of the Football League’s four divisions the previous season, so eight teams in total.
The tournament ought to have been a veritable goal fest then, and quite often it was. Derby County beat Manchester United in the first final in 1970, and from 1971 onwards the offside rule would only apply within the penalty area, rather than beyond the halfway line – so as to create more free-scoring outcomes. It worked in the first year as Colchester United and West Brom drew 4-4 in the 1971 final, but not so much in 1972 when Bristol Rovers and Sheffield United played out a 0-0 draw in the final.
Ultimately the four winners were Derby, Colchester, Bristol Rovers and Stoke City, meaning two First Division clubs won it, one Third Division club and one Fourth Division club. The Watney Cup was the first English football tournament to sell its naming rights, doing so to the London-based Watney Mann brewing company. It was also the first English competition to feature a penalty shoot-out, between Manchester United and Hull City. George Best became the first player to score a penalty on English soil and Denis Law the first to miss one, but Manchester United still won the day as Hull City goalkeeper Ian McKechnie became not only the first goalkeeper to save a penalty in England but the first to miss one too.
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