"The 1990s - what was all that about?" - lost decades, reasons & regrets

Half-a-decade for me, from 1989 to 1994. The bit between Michael Thomas's goal and Cantona doing Matthew Simmons isn't even a blur, it just never happened.

The international tournaments were as vivid as ever, and I devoured the European Cup's evolution into that thing we have now, but as for domestic fare - not a bit. Any memories I do have are from other sources - Gazza's knee making the news, or learning about Andy Cole from my sister who was for a time a bigger football fan than me.

I don't know why this happened. I got into music instead, maybe? I don't recall the two being particularly entwined in that era. Or it could be the crushing Old Firm dominance in Scotland, which I've never got over. Anyway, it's not ideal that the reawakening puts me into the EPL bracket, but I was here before, dammit.

I think the only thing I really regret is missing United's collapse in 1992, but for all I know there could've been tons of drama passing me by.

fucking Nayim...

cunt of a phone dropped my post but it essentially said 'lol early bedtimes, lol no internet, lol no english channels'

I used to have to go over to my neighbour's house to watch the games on Sky. Only really started doing that in the 94/95 season though. Prior to that i had special dispensation to say up late to watch MOTD, much to the fury of my brothers who didn't watch football

there used to be matches on rte on saturday at three, i think there might have been a loophole there for a year or two? Setanta took advantage of something similar for the first few years

only really began to get into football mid-94, must have been during the world cup cos i've no personal recollection of the 93 domestic season.

if i had to sum my 90s up in one word it would probably be... teletext. so much teletext.

the live matches on RTE weren't that long ago though. Middle of the last decade i think

jesus yeah, teletext, when it worked. i had the pleasure of watching my lfc supporting mate(the guy who is mainly responsible for my love of baiting the RAWK stereotype, tbh) react to utd scoring two in a few mins to turn a win into a loss, all in the time it took to refresh pg 223.

i'd often hear results in the morning paper, it were all field reports around here etc

Ceefax died last month

RIP

To compound this being a domestic blackout only, Football Italia was a huge thing for me too - which must've been from its very inception (Sep 1992) because I remember being very aggrieved when Gazza made his comeback a few weeks later and they started showing Lazio every week.

vaguely disappointed to click this and find it a football thread

oh well, at least it didn't turn out to be on ILM

come back & post when your lost decade's over

we own the franchise thomp but for a cut of profits we'll allow you bring the format to ilb- if that goes well you could get in on the ile action

good shout on football italia! That milan team still my favourite ever

late night BBC 2 still has pages from Ceefax, oddly. That it'll say 'go to page 400 for weather' when there's now no one in the world who can actually do that, it says something profound about the futility of it all.

particularly remember being forever tantalised by the "INTERNATIONAL STRIKER SIGNS??????" type adverts on teletext for the clubcall/teamtalk phone-in lines

i even ended up ringing them a couple of times before my mum got the bill and delivered a bollocking - thanks very much tony incenzo

ha- sky's teletext service was still at that last i checked. Cheaper to just pay for the sports news channel i'd say

actually incenzo leads me nicely to listening to loads of football radio, especially the local capital gold in its jonathan pearce glory days

shameful though it sounds now the euro 96 matches i watched at home on the telly i watched with the sound down and pearce turned up

"A...L..SUPER AL..SUPER ALAN SHEARER"

danny baker on 606/glr/talksport too

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/footie.htm

oh man i need to listen to all this again

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/audio/ref1.mp3

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/audio/slap.mp3

here darragh, you'll like these

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/audio/reflamb.mp3

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/audio/norefs.mp3

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/audio/refgo.mp3

http://www.internettreehouse.co.uk/audio/reftwo9.mp3

epic

Eric Cantona's interview in the paper today. His main memory from the game....Booting that palace fan because 'these hooligans have no place in the game.' What a fucking LAD

The proudest moment of my life was meeting and nutmegging Dennis Bergkamp and laughing. He then took the ball off me and made me fall on my arse when i tried to tackle him. PlayingWithHeroesLAD

Playing FIFA online and my opponent had picked Germany (SHIT LAD). I had two options, pick England to stuff them right up, or pick Nigeria. I picked Nigeria, simply for the fact that when the match started it was NIG GER. I had a little giggle to myself then managed to scrap a 2-1 victory, whilst doing a Shearer celebration every time I scored to stay patriotic. LAD

Our house had a power cut for the 1994 World Cup Final and we only got power back for the post-picking-up-pictures. I thought the whole world was the street I grew up on, and ran to all my friends houses, collecting different friends, all of whom suffered. We all ended up sat on a street corner, looking vaguely annoyed and not really talking to each other.

football in the 90s memories

- dunphy and giles banging on about how football had lost its heart/way/passion/great players etc. theyre still on about it though so i dont take them as seriously as i used to

- praying they wouldnt show an Arsenal game on Sports Stadium on a Saturday

- arsenal and man united fight in the early 90s'

- much

oops

- much preferring the kick and rush wham bang of the english league to the italian league (although i did concede that they had the best players)

tbph for pretty much its entire run i would sit down to watch football italia every sunday and end up having a 80 minute nap. best naps of my life though.

did once wake up in time to see george weah's goal v verona live which was nice, but then again i've always felt it to be a tad overrated anyway

I used to have to go over to my neighbour's house to watch the games on Sky

Yeah, for all the talk of just how much football is televised nowadays compared to back in the 80s, the immediate effect of Sky getting the Premier League was that virtually nobody could watch any football on TV. In 1992 I was a student living in poverty - we didn't have a TV or a telephone or a washing machine or central heating or anything much so the idea of satellite TV was about as realistic as getting a helicopter. I don't know when the licensing laws changed, but I think it was only a year or two earlier - before that all pubs had to shut in the middle of the afternoon until early evening (maybe from 3pm to 6pm?) and in 1992 lots still kept that habit. Also hardly any had satellite TV. This changed a lot within just a couple of years, but I remember fruitlessly searching for anywhere to watch those first Sunday matches on Sky before disconsolately heading home to listen on the radio.

Eventually the student union started showing the games. But my university didn't have a student union venue as such, just six different college bars (which were also closed on Sunday afternoons), so it meant going round and round the campus to find a screen that was showing the game and then sitting essentially in a corridor, often alone or with two or three others, surrounded by closed facilities and lifeless silence. When United won the first title in 26 years, they did it without playing - Villa lost against Oldham. I think I was the only person watching it.

That's a vision. I like that more than any number of time-of-my-life-in-a-crowded-bar-with-all-my-closest-friends stories.

I saw Michael Owen win the FA Cup that time on a tiny portable screen high behind the counter in a cavernous empty cafe in Edinburgh. With the sound off. I barely even noticed it happening tbh.

online multiplayer FIFA? in the 90s?

we got sky in when we became upper-middle for about two years in 97. before then i'd cycle 5 miles to the pub when we lived in achill. note- it wasn't anything like five miles to the nearest pub but mates from around the island would agree to centralise on friday afternoon (no texts see?)

"football can't rest on the whim of these ... erstwhile butchers' assistants"

a maggot at its golden core

My mother-in-law comes from Achill. Perhaps Darragh is some kind of long lost relative.

that is pretty likely tbh

it would be beautiful if you could liveblog the tearful reunion on ilf

merdey/onimo surprise surprise was a gruff affair iirc

My defining moment of the 90s - and the only time I've cried at a football match - and all because of Neil Fucking Warnock.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5mZ8PhuL74

We'd finished second that season but there was only one automatic promotion spot because of the Premier League cutting down to 20 teams.