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Just occasionally, a thumping win becomes a massacre. Ian Farrell looks back at the most recent time a League team posted double figures

Though the points were totting up nicely, Manchester City’s record of ten goals in their first eight games of this season was nevertheless an underwhelming and depressingly familiar return. When, at the start of November, Sunderland were then subjected to their regulation 1‑0 defeat – the sixth such home win at Eastlands – nostalgic fans couldn’t help thinking back almost exactly 20 years, to a time when a very different MCFC matched Sven-Göran Eriksson’s eight-match stats in 77 insane minutes.

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A surprise quartet won promotion from the bottom division, remembers Simon Willis

The long-term significance
The season began with referees being instructed by the Football League to clamp down on foul play, especially the tackle from behind. As a consequence, bookings and dismissals reached record levels, as did players’ appeals against their cautions – a disciplinary points system was introduced the following season. Some club chairmen demanded the resignation of League secretary Alan Hardaker, saying they hadn’t been consulted over the new interpretations. “We are getting away from common sense and instead finding chaos,” said PFA chairman Derek Dougan. Many referees duly became more lenient as the season went on, but the days of blatant clogging were slowly coming to an end. A transitional era for the game was to be recorded by the alternative magazine Foul!, launched by Cambridge University students in October 1972.

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Sunday 1 “As the beaten team, you think all kinds of sinister motives,” says Steve Coppell, one step away from blaming the CIA for Robbie Keane’s disputed penalty as Spurs move up to sixth with a 1-0 home win against Reading. DJ Campbell scores twice as Birmingham defeat Coventry 3-0 to go back into second in the Championship. Hearts beat Hibs 1-0 at Easter Road.

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Over recent years these clubs have faced each other many times but never at such levels of comfort as this meeting, both on and off the pitch. Did the game itself reflect current contentment? Roger Titford went along to find out

Reading’s first season in the Premiership has been a sweet dream so far. Back in October we did a double-take as Sky announced “three big games for you this weekend: Man United v Liverpool, Reading v Arsenal and Real Madrid v Barcelona”. It’s amazing how quickly you get used to the attention and by February the blandishments of the broadsheets had become commonplace. Europe, rather than relegation, was our struggle. Premiership foes, who looked so big, fast and fit in early autumn, had shrunk in the face of our sustained teamwork and intelligence. We could even travel to the Emirates in hope.

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Friday 2 All league football in Italy is suspended after the death of a policeman in a riot outside Catania’s stadium during their match with Palermo. “What we’re witnessing has nothing to do with football, so Italian football is stopping,” says Federation boss Luca Pancalli.

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