1999-00 In English Football Article Index for
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OVERVIEW


Premier League

Manchester United were crowned FA Premier League champions with an 18-point margin over runners-up Arsenal and just three league defeats all season. This was despite their failure to retain the European Cup and withdrawal from the FA Cup in order to compete in the FIFA Club World Championship - a campaign which was short lived.

Sunderland make an impressive Premiership comeback by finishing seventh and just missing out on a UEFA Cup place thanks to 30 goals from brilliant striker Kevin Phillips .

Watford went down in bottom place with a record Premiership low of 24 points. Sheffield Wednesday were next to go down. On the last day of the season, Wimbledon lost 3-0 at Southampton and Bradford City achieved a shock 1-0 home win over Liverpool . This meant that Bradford had survived the drop and Liverpool had surrendered a UEFA Champions League place. It also meant that Wimbledon's 14-year spell in the top flight was over and they were relegated to Division One 12 years to the day that they had beaten Liverpool to achieve a shock FA Cup triumph.


Division one

The three promotion places in Division One went to champions Charlton Athletic , runners-up Manchester City and playoff winners Ipswich Town .

1999-2000 also saw some of Division One's biggest clubs miss out on promotion - the biggest of these were Blackburn Rovers (11th) and Nottingham Forest (14th). Steve Coppell ended his fourth spell as Crystal Palace manager after doing wonders to keep a virtually bankrupt club clear of the Division One relegation zone.

Going down were Walsall , Port Vale and Swindon Town . West Bromwich Albion just missed out on the drop zone thanks to a late turn-around in form during the final weeks of the season which followed the appointment of Gary Megson as manager.


Division two

David Moyes , 37, showed promise as one of the league's most highly rated young managers after he guided Preston North End to the Division Two championship. Stan Ternent 's two-year rebuilding project at Burnley paid off as they finished runners-up in the division. Joining them in Division One were Peter Taylor 's Gillingham , who had reached the upper half of the league for the first time in their history.

Going down were Cardiff City , Blackpool F.C. , Scunthorpe United and Chesterfield . Narrowly avoiding the drop were Oxford United , who struggled all season long despite the club's financial crisis being eased by the arrival of new Tanzanian chairman Firoz Kassam .


Division Three

Swansea City , Rotherham United , Northampton Town and Peterborough United occupied the four promotion places in Division Three .

Chester City were relegated on the last day of the season, ending their 69-year league career while Shrewsbury Town and Carlisle United saved themselves from Conference football.


FA Cup

Chelsea beat Aston Villa 1-0 in the last FA Cup final at Wembley before its redevelopment.


League Cup

Leicester City beat Tranmere Rovers 2-0 to yield their second League Cup in four seasons.


EVENTS

  • Manchester United retained their Premiership title after losing just three league games all season.

  • Chelsea beat Aston Villa 1-0 in the last F.A Cup final at Wembley before the stadium was closed for reconstruction.

  • Martin O'Neill guided Leicester City to their second League Cup triumph in four seasons before moving north of the border to Celtic.

  • Sir Stanley Matthews died aged 85 after a short illness.

  • England overcame Scotland in the qualification playoffs to qualify for Euro 2000, and beat Germany in the group stages. But they surrendered two-goal leads to lose 3-2 to both Portugal and Romania and failed to reach the quarter finals.

  • Bobby Robson, 66, became the oldest manager ever to take charge of a Premiership club when he succeeded 37-year-old Ruud Gullit as manager of Newcastle United.

  • Chester City were relegated to the Conference after 69 years of Football League membership. They were replaced by Conference champions Kidderminster Harriers, who had won the Conference title six years earlier but had been refused promotion because their Aggborough ground did not meet capacity requirements.

  • Steve Coppell resigned as Crystal Palace manager, having been in charge of the club four times in 16 years.

  • Alan Shearer retired from international football after playing for England at Euro 2000, much to the dismay of many fans who felt that he still had a few years left in him at the highest level.

  • Wimbledon were relegated from the Premiership after 14 years in the top flight.



SUCCESSFUL PLAYERS

Roy Keane captained Manchester United to another Premiership title triumph and was credited with the Player of the Year awards from both the PFA and FWA .

Leeds United 's exciting 22-year-old Australian midfielder Harry Kewell was voted PFA Young Player of the Year after helping secure a Champions League place for his side.

Kevin Phillips opened his Premiership goalscoring account at Sunderland with 30 goals in a season - making him the highest scoring footballer in the whole league.

Andy Cole scored 19 Premiership goals for Manchester United - the highest number of goals he had scored in any season for the Old Trafford club.


SUCCESSFUL MANAGERS

Sir Alex Ferguson guided Manchester United to their sixth Premiership title in eight years.

Gianluca Vialli won his fourth major trophy in two-and-a-half seasons by winning the FA Cup for Chelsea .

David O'Leary ended his first full season as Leeds United manager with a run to the semi finals of the UEFA Cup and qualification for next season's Champions League.

Peter Reid achieved a remarkable seventh-place finish for Sunderland in their Premiership comeback season.

Joe Royle took Manchester City into the Premiership after winning a second successive promotion.


BIGGEST RISE

Gillingham won the Division Two playoffs to reach the upper half of the English league for the first time in their history.


BIGGEST FALL

Wimbledon were relegated from the Premiership after 14 successive seasons of top flight football. 12 years earlier they had been F.A Cup winners.


DEATHS

  • Sir Stanley Matthews , one of the greatest footballers England ever produced, died in his native Stoke-on-Trent three weeks after his 85th birthday. Despite his on-the-field brilliance, he only ever won one major trophy - the 1953 FA Cup with Blackpool . That game was dubbed 'The Matthews Final' because he had so influenced his side's dramatic recovery from almost certain defeat at the hands of Bolton Wanderers .

  • Wilf Mannion , 81, died just a few weeks after his old England team mate Sir Stanley Matthews . Mannion had played 26 times for England in the immediate postwar years, and was a regular goalscorer for Middlesbrough at club level.

  • Stan Flashman , 69, rescued near-bankrupt non-league Barnet with a takeover deal in 1985 . He made funds available to manager Barry Fry in hope of building a quality side, and this paid off with promotion to The Football League in 1991, but he had quit within two years with the club knee deep in financial problems once again. Although Flashman's rash attitude (which saw him sack and reinstate Fry eight times) made him unpopular with most Barnet fans, it is unlikely that Barnet would have experienced league football without his takeover - they could well have gone out of business.

  • Martin Aldridge , 25, Blackpool striker on loan to Rushden & Diamonds , died in an Oxford hospital from injuries sustained in a car crash in Northamptonshire . He had been a fairly consistent goalscorer for Northampton Town and Oxford United earlier in his career, and was a regular striker for Oxford during their 1996-97 Division Two promotion campaign.

  • David Bickles , 55, was a full-back in the 1960s West Ham United side which won the FA Cup and the Cup Winners' Cup . He later played for Crystal Palace and then Colchester United before retiring from football to become a P.E teacher in 1979. He was also a part-time coach for West Ham United.