English First Division 1978-1979

Bob Paisley won his third league title at Liverpool with the vital stats 42 - 30 - 8 - 4 - 85 - 16 - 69 - 68.  Or put another way, over the course of 42 games, Liverpool won 30 and drew 8, losing just 4.  They scored 85 goals with only 16 conceded.  A total points haul then, of 68.  This was 8 points clear of nearest rivals Nottingham Forest and a further point away from WBA (who under 3 points for a win would've finished 2nd).

West Brom played for the first time under the management of Ron Atkinson, and along the way, had beaten Man Utd 5-3 at Old Trafford.  Their team included some fantastic young talent, the likes of Laurie Cunningham, Cyrille Regis, Bryan Robson and Brendan Batson.

At the other end of the table, we saw perennial relegatees, Birmingham City along with London duo Chelsea and QPR leave to join the second division.  Chelsea Manager and Spurs Legend, Danny Blanchflower lost his job and QPR were suffering after the loss of Dave Sexton as manager.

Perhaps this was the season when money first began to be a big issue in English Football.  We saw the first million pound transfer - as Trevor Francis joined Nottingham Forest from Birmingham City.  Of course he repaid a large slice of the fee by scoring the only goal in the European Cup Final, as Forest defeated FC Malmo at the Olympic Stadium, Munich.  Liverpool became one of the first English clubs to have a shirt sponsor when they agreed a sponsorship deal with the Japanese hi-fi manufacturers Hitachi. By the end of the season, more and more clubs were signing deals as teams became even more obsessed with extra-football revenue generation.

P W D L F A GD Pts
Liverpool 42 30 8 4 85 16 69 68
Nottingham Forest 42 21 18 3 61 26 35 60
WBA 42 24 11 7 72 35 37 59
Everton 42 17 17 8 52 40 12 51
Leeds United 42 18 14 10 70 52 18 50
Ipswich Town 42 20 9 13 63 49 14 49
Arsenal 42 17 14 11 61 48 13 48
Aston Villa 42 15 16 11 59 49 10 46
Manchester United 42 15 15 12 60 63 -3 45
Coventry City 42 14 16 12 58 68 -10 44
Tottenham Hotspur 42 13 15 14 48 61 -13 41
Middlesbrough 42 15 10 17 57 50 7 40
Bristol City 42 15 10 17 47 51 -4 40
Southampton 42 12 16 14 47 53 -6 40
Manchester City 42 13 13 16 58 56 2 39
Norwich City 42 7 23 12 51 57 -6 37
Bolton Wanderers 42 12 11 19 54 75 -21 35
Wolves 42 13 8 21 44 68 -24 34
Derby County 42 10 11 21 44 71 -27 31
QPR 42 6 13 23 45 73 -28 25
Birmingham City 42 6 10 26 37 64 -27 22
Chelsea 42 5 10 27 44 92 -48 20

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 4th, 2009 at 6:28 am and is filed under First Division pre 1993. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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