Totally Gold 98/99: More than just Man United’s treble

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2:31Hello, listener. Through the summer, we're running regular Totally Football shows on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus a bonus show, usually on the Monday, that we're calling Totally Goal, revisiting that curious interval in 2020 when there was no football on and all we had to talk about was some of the greatest football seasons in history. Today is the episode where myself, Michael Cox, Daniel Storey and Matt Davis-Adams got together to parlay like it's 1999, as we discussed a season when there were countless twists and turns, but only one team ended up winning it all.

3:12Unbelievable. Unbelievable this.

3:2698-99. A season famous for that bewildering last-minute blaze in Barcelona, but also in the Premier League for one of the greatest ever struggles for a title, up there with Agueru, It's Up For Grabs Now, and Stefan Kunz's autobiography. Three teams, Chelsea, Arsenal and Man United, taking it right down to the wire in May, and along the way, a season that gave us delights such as Hullit at Newcastle, George Graham at White Hart Lane Big Ron in the Big Wrong Dugout and Paolo Di Canio in Big Trouble This was the 100th top flight campaign in English football history Michael, do people forget how good it was?

4:06Yeah, I think because Manchester United won the treble and people think about their Champions League victories obviously the one in the final there was a famous victory against Juve even the group stages against Barca I think people look back they think of this season as Manchester United and they think of them winning the Champions League more than anything else but I mean their three victories were all various stages quite tight margins and certainly in both the Premier League and the FA Cup they went toe-to-toe with Arsenal and you know even two games from the end of the season it looked like Arsenal were in the driving seat midway through that semi-final at Villa Park it looked like Arsenal in the driving seat so yeah it was two really good sides and yeah I think it's probably one of the more enjoyable Premier League seasons looking back.

4:49Yeah, the highest quality title race that we've seen so far whilst we've been chronicling these Premier League seasons, definitely. You mentioned that there were three teams in it, obviously Chelsea as well, but United and Arsenal set such high standards that it really did feel like the quality of the league was beginning to improve significantly from where it was two, three seasons ago, maybe. And also, but kind of intertwined with that, the light and shade of surprising teams being up there, You know, Aston Villa starting really quickly. Middles were being in the top four for a while. Derby were second at one point.

5:22So although those teams eventually kind of went on to steamroller the second half of the season, the first half of the season had that uncertainty that makes a Premier League season or makes a great Premier League season. I think it wasn't just two or even three teams going blow for blow. There was a really nice light and shade to it. Speaking of uncertainty, plenty of managerial movement even before Christmas. So five managers leaving their post. Roy Hodgson at Rovers, who was gone in November after just two wins from the opening 13 games. Former Man United assistant Brian Kidd taking over. Meanwhile, Roy Evans going at Liverpool after that failed joint manager stint with Gerard Houllier.

6:02Christian Gross was out after three games this season at Spurs, replaced by former gunner George Graham. And before any of them, Kenny Dalgleish out at Newcastle just two games into the season, replaced by Ruud Hullit at his sexy football. Newcastle as entertaining as ever this season, eh? Yeah, I mean, they did this weird thing where they basically had the best centre forward in the country over the course of his career, who was kind of at that point slightly changing his game to become a bit more of a kind of all-round centre forward or even a target man, which is what he became. And they signed Duncan Ferguson for 8 million, the most obvious target man, big man centre forward in English football at the time.

6:44And then still had the old players left, like the Stuart Pearces. It's very strange going through that Newcastle squad and realising that some of those players played with each other because they had the youngsters coming through. And then, as I say, these old heads. It was a dismal Premier League season and Hullet was not well liked. They finished down in 13th place. They do reach the FA Cup final for the second season in a row, of course, failing to win it. But Civil War raging. There's an interesting piece actually in The Athletic or on The Athletic right now with a lot of kind of first-person accounts from squad members of that time talking about the split.

7:22Shearer, who apparently Hullet used to say to his face, you are the most overrated player I have ever seen. Basically saying that had they won that FA Cup final, Hullet would have won the war and Shearer would have had to have left the club. Equally mentions of Stuart Pearce. They used to do England against rest of the world five-a-side matches in training. pierce he would be on one side and hull it would be on the other a warren barton story this so pierce used to say drop the ball short whenever it goes near the gaffer and they duly would and of course shoot pierce would come in with a trademark clatter from about 60 yards out and and that was very much the mood of things there it's fair to say that hull it was not a man who was bowed to public opinion or sometimes sense i mean i know we're going in slightly into the next season but by the following august the start of 1999-2000 he dropped shearer for a derby against sunderland for paul robinson because he'd clearly fallen out with shearer which i mean if nothing else is ballsy and they then lost the game and he got sacked so um maybe that says more about than anyone else not the only headstrong dutchman in this premier league season of course we'll touch more on another figure a little bit later on but also pretty entertaining that year were John Gregory's Aston Villa.

8:33They'd sold Dwight York at the start of the season, of whom Gregory memorably said, if I had a gun, I would have shot him. But they had signed Paul Merson and later Dion Dublin and began the season with a 12-match unbeaten run and they spent most of the first half of the campaign as the leaders. Yeah, you can take your pick on John Gregory quotes from this season, whether it's that one or what he said, Paul Merson's unveiling, all the stuff about Stan Collymore, how could you be depressed when you're on 20 grand a week? David Unsworth misses, where's the trousers in that house? And there's a bit in Gareth Southgate's autobiography that he wrote a number of years ago about this season and how Gregory used to insist on putting the armband on Gareth Southgate in front of the players before they went out onto the pitch because it was a visual representation of him passing the responsibility for the team from himself and on to Southgate and Southgate not really having this.

9:37And it's very, the more you look at Gregory, the more he kind of feels like the inspiration for David Brent because some extraordinary sort of management practices and the way that he dealt with the press in particular maybe suggests why his career went like Villa's season, really. it started brightly and then it petered out into sort of insignificance. Yeah, this Villa season also featured, I think, one of the most memorable Premier League games during this period, which was a 3-2 win they got over Arsenal just before Christmas. They were 2-0 down to two Dennis Bergkamp goals and then Gregory completely changed things, put on an extra striker in Stan Collymore and they won 3-2 with goals from Joachim and Dublin with two other forwards.

10:17Collymore on the near post, coming in behind him is Dublin! It's a goal!

10:28It was probably most memorable for the fact he was held up by about half an hour because a parachutist descending into the stadium at half-time managed to clip the edge of one of the stands and then fell very dramatically. Quite a serious incident. He ended up losing a leg. the happy ending to the story is that the nurse who cared for him in hospital he later married well that's lovely Michael this Villa season is also notable because I think I'm right in saying it was the last time that any club filled in all English 11 and it's actually quite often they would bring on two or three subs and those would also be English which yeah you struggle to imagine happening now well Villa were top at Christmas before winning only one of their next 12 matches They ended up in sixth place, which is the biggest drop by a team that had been leading on December 25th in Premier League history.

11:22They ended up actually leapfrogged by West Ham. West Ham, who posted their second best finish ever in the top division, up in a remarkable fifth place. Weird, it has to be said, it's a pretty remarkable squad. Harry Redknapp had been winding his car window down repeatedly that summer and into the season as well as the club snapped up. Xhaka Hislott, Razor Ruddock, Mark Keller, Ian Wright, and then in mid-season, Paolo Di Canio. More on him in a second. But Ian Wright, was that a whopping surprise at the time? I think it probably was in so much as probably the reason, if there is one reason why United won the title, is that they had three goal scorers in Cole, York and Solskjaer to come off the bench.

12:04Whereas Arslai Kani, who didn't, you know, he scored, I think he scored two league goals that season. He didn't really get much time. game so maybe in hindsight Wenger would think that Wright would have been a good player to hang around but knowing Wright's personality he just wanted to play every game and as soon as it became clear that Anelka and Bergkamp were the first choice front two I think he would probably have been pushing for playing every week in the Premier League which is pretty much what he did at West Ham. Well he finished up top scorer for the Hammers in what was his last ever Premier League season although there was that regrettable business when he smashed up the referee's dressing room after receiving a red card he felt unjustly.

12:39It was a bad season for match officials this, not least because of the actions of, in Wright's teammate subsequently at West Ham, Sheffield Wednesday's Paolo Di Canio. Di Canio had nothing to do with it, and Di Canio has been central and has pushed down from the referee. His career in English football could come to a very sudden end. If we think of the Cantona Kung Fu kick as being one of those where were you when that happened kind of stops you dead in your track type moment. Was Di Canio pushing over the ref of a similar magnitude? Yeah, it wasn't such a big event because, you know, Di Canio was a talented player for a kind of mid-table bottom half side rather than, you know, probably the most revered player in the league as Cantona was at that time.

13:24But I think in terms of the impacts and in terms of the reaction, yeah, it probably was similar. I mean, we hadn't really seen anything like that before in English football in terms of a referee really being assaulted, I guess you could say. Yeah, I mean, it kind of led to his departure from Sheffield Wednesday. I think the thing people forget about that is that was in the first half. Wednesday were down to 10 men for the majority of the game and still won 1-0 at home to Arsenal with a goal by a left-back called Lee Briscoe, who I must admit I really had to Google because I have no recollection of him whatsoever.

13:54But it was an incredible chip in the last minute over David Seaman into the far corner. And when you look at the league table at the end of the campaign, and obviously Arsenal were one win short of winning the league. So you have to look at that and say losing away to 10-man Sheffield Wednesday was one of the results that really cost them the title. Incredible chip. It's a fair description of De Canio as well. I think probably assault on the referee is a bit strong when you look at it. Well, to quote De Canio from his autobiography, I could push my eight-year-old daughter that hard and she wouldn't fall over.

14:22But Alcock's tumble is perhaps the most spectacular element, apart from the bit afterwards when De Canio is being hustled off the field and Nigel Winterbourne comes up all, do you want some? Until Di Canio makes a move towards him and Nigel kind of flinches away in dramatic fashion. As somebody on Twitter pointed out, that must have been pretty awkward when Winterbourne later moves to West Ham to join Di Canio there. Just on the Cantona thing, I think one of the big differences, as trivial as it sounds, as you sort of allude to there, James, is the visual element of it. It's shocking to see Cantona dive into the crowd to cause some serious damage to somebody potentially, whereas the All Cop one just looks like comedy because of the way that he stumbles and falls over in a way that you shouldn't when you push that much.

15:08It becomes something that is humorous and then you get, what, a couple of days later, Neil Ruddock and Ian Wright reenacting it in a goal celebration. And that was not the kind of reaction you got to the Cantona, I think. It was more humour than outrage that was the response to it at the time, I seem to remember. I gotta say I hate the Di Canio incident and the way it was kind of joked about afterwards and the way they did the celebrations and that in general I really don't like footballers being held up as role models and having to set an example and all that but like the rate of assaults on like grassroots officials is so bad like it's really really bad and there was another incident maybe this season roughly around this time where Emmanuel Petit literally just put his hands on the referee didn't push him almost was just almost pleading with him I think and was shown a straight red card.

15:56And I thought that was quite interesting because a lot of referees came out and said they really appreciated that because it set an example that you just don't touch the referee. Well, after an 11-game suspension, he was to join West Ham, who, as we mentioned, finished fifth and returned to European competition after a 19-year absence. We'd better talk about that title race.

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17:52For the ones who get it done.

18:01This is the Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. The Athletic is the only place you can read articles by Daniel Taylor, Amy Lawrence, Phil Hay, James Pearce, Olly Kaye and the very best football writers around. So Villa had been top at Christmas. Three real contenders emerged, though, as the new year got underway. United, who had squandered an 11-point lead the previous season, but spent big over the summer on amongst others Dwight York and Jörg Stamm, and had David Beckham in arguably his best ever season for them. There was reigning champions Arsenal, whose defence was playing tight, but whose players no longer were, crucially, and who'd added Nwanku Karnu as the season progressed.

18:41And there was Chelsea, who are often forgotten, but who were actually, still in December, the bookies' favourites to take the title. Craig Nugent says, a bit of love for Chelsea would be appreciated. We only missed out by four points. And if it weren't for those injuries to poy and flow, we really could have won it. Is that right, Matt? Could they? Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I mean, they lost on the opening day at Coventry and then they didn't lose another league game until the end of January, which is really impressive. Remember, they also won the Super Cup in this season, beating Real Madrid in the final.

19:11This is the Ali's first full season as manager. you mentioned that the players missing through injury in Flo and Poyet, but also Pierluigi Kaziragi had his career-ending injury during this season, who could have been another source of goals for them, albeit he hadn't got off to a particularly impressive start. But yeah, really significant season for Chelsea. They had a very international flavour to the squad, as would become the norm. They had World Cup winning centre-backs in Desailly and Le Boeuf, and John Terry also made his debut in this season too. so it is one that was significant and Chelsea definitely were in the title race up until the point in April where they had three successive draws the most memorable of which was a 2-2 at home to Leicester when Steve Guppy got an 88th minute equaliser and Guppy is still a swear word around Stamford Bridge as a result of that Guppy it's bending, it's in!

20:05Steve Guppy Arsenal with results like that 5-1 demolition of Wimbledon a 6-1 against Middlesbrough as well United countering with results like that 8-1 victory at Nottingham Forest that nobody likes to talk about but features Ole Gunnar Solskjaer scoring four goals in 14 minutes having come on as a substitute It was 1-1 at one point that game I was there

20:32Well Arsenal had won 14 and lost one out of their previous 18 games as the Premier League entered its final weeks United though had won 14 and lost none In two, the final set of matches we went. The two teams absolutely level, united ahead of Arsenal on goals scored alone. That midweek, though, Arsenal go to Ellen Road and suffer a momentous defeat. Kewler. Plenty in the box here, Leeds. Kewler to Hasselbeck. And Jimmy Floyd, Hasselbeck, has scored what could be a critical goal in the Premiership season. it might be the goal that ruins Arsenal's chances of retaining the title and they know it.

21:20Arsenal had a few problems with Leeds during these title races with Manchester United. A few years later, pretty much similar time of the season, I think Viduka and Kuhl scored at Highbury to really knock them out of the title race. But yeah, this was quite an eventful game. Both sides had chances really. Arsenal probably should have won it. But a late goal from Jimmy Floyd Hasselbank. who I think actually is one of the most underrated Premier League players Hasselbein I think absolutely brilliant striker you know good with both feet good in the air I think his link play was good he scored three kicks just really good player won the Golden Boot jointly on a couple of occasions as well including this season but yeah it was a funny kind of campaign because obviously Leeds were not really wanting Manchester United to win the league but they helped them out with this win and then on the final day Arsenal end up hoping that Tottenham can do them a favour against Manchester United.

22:09Right, Arsenal one point behind United going into that final day, Arsenal taking on Aston Villa but needing United not to win and of course United are up against their former manager George Graham and his new club Spurs. Could Spurs do Arsenal a favour? Well they took the lead. Oh Ferdinand's got a foot to it! He scored! Les Ferdinand! An amazing moment at Old Trafford. And then what happened Daniel? And then Manchester United went on to win as they had done in pretty much every game between January and the end of the season. I remember them obviously being consistent in all three competitions, but I hadn't quite realised that 19th of December was their last defeat in all competitions that season, which is remarkable, really.

22:55I think this is the six-month period where that resilience and that guts of Ferguson's Manchester United is really kind of truly established, that lingers on for most of the next decade. We know the Arsenal semi-final in the FA Cup. We know the Champions League late salvo against Bayern Munich, but even in the league as well, just that relentlessness late on in games to find points or wins where they knew a defeat would probably have let Arsenal in. That's what psychologically did for Arsenal, I think. And as soon as they struggled in that game against Leeds, it paid for them. And you watch Manchester United that season and it was the first time I remember watching them thinking, even if they're losing with 10 minutes to go, I still don't think they'll draw the game.

23:38I still think they'll win the game. Clearly, they had the strikers with all three of Cole, York and Solskjaer contributing. But as you mentioned earlier, Beckham was phenomenal. Keane was brilliant. And yeah, just a pure, pure relentlessness, which is exactly what Ferguson wanted to create a team in his own image. Yeah, we mentioned David Beckham and having one of his better campaigns. Obviously, this is coming off the back of the World Cup when he got sent off for England against Argentina. and there were all sorts of horrendous tabloid headlines about him and effigies being burnt and whatever, but it never got through to Manchester, or the red half of Manchester at least.

24:15And I think he probably benefited from Alex Ferguson's attitude, which was always that club is more important than country and the United fans with their kind of Republic of Mancunia banners and stuff were more than willing to show Beckham that they didn't care what had happened with England and that obviously inspired him. to go on and have one of his best ever campaigns. And people forget what a good player he was, his crossing in particular in this season, kind of second to none. And those chances more often than not are converted by the strikers that we've talked about and sharing them too.

24:49And United end up scoring 21 more goals this season than Arsenal, even though Arsenal have a far better defensive record. And United win 10 of their 38 league games by the odd goal. So it just goes to show how significant those strikers were. not least when you think that on this last day against Spurs, Andy Cole gets the winning goal, having come off the substitute bench in this game. What, a week later, Teddy Sheringham comes off the bench in the FA Cup final and scores, and then we know what happens in the Nou Camp against Bayern Munich. It's a brilliant chip, that. What was the goal that actually won them the title?

25:23Because a draw wouldn't have been enough with Arsenal beating Aston Villa, but Andrew Cole with a wonderful strike. Oh, it's Andy Cole. Can he get it out of the walker?

25:43The one thing I'd slightly forgotten about that strike force is just how good Dwight York was in that season. You know, you don't get a lot of time to settle at Manchester United and play your way in. But I hadn't realised, as well as being one of the top scorers in the league, he also got 11 assists, which is... I don't really think of Dwight York as that kind of striker. I think of him as a goal scorer and as a kind of slightly invented player, but not a player who is going to get the most assists for Manchester United in a season. That must be one of the best individual Premier League campaigns, I'd have thought.

26:1629 goals and assists in a team where he wasn't necessarily starting every week. Yeah, it's interesting. There's quite good quotes from Ferguson a while back where he's talking about the 4-4-2 system. And he's saying, to be honest, at Manchester United, we've never really played a 4-4-2, which I thought was odd. But then he says, well, we've always had one withdrawn forward. You look at Cantona and Sheringham and Rooney and Dwight York. And yes, I'm saying this, Daniel, I always thought of him as really a number nine, but he was clearly contributing a little bit more than that. I think it was also very important in another way, which was that whenever you read accounts of Andy Cole at the time, he's quite a difficult character, Cole.

26:52He's quite aloof and he was always quite separated from other players in the dressing room. And it's clear that Dwight York, he just got along with really well. I think they became best mates. And I remember reading a story that they got some type of really garish car. I think it's like a pink Ferrari or something. They got matching ones with almost identical number plates and that. And I think on the pitch, he was doing a job of linking the rest of the side and Cole. And I think he kind of did that with the dressing room as well. And Cole and him, I think, linked up at Blackburn, maybe even Sunderland again together.

27:22And I know Cole says he was just a lot more comfortable both on the pitch and off it after York had come. the end of the campaign saw Charlton return to Division 1 with Alan Kerbishley they would return as would Blackburn who went down just four seasons after winning the Premiership and they weren't the only former top fight champions making the trip down because Nazion Forrest also got relegated it was always looking like a tough campaign from the word go with Harry Bassett in charge and with top striker Pierre van Hooydonk going well on strike Yeah, so Van Hooydonk had played for Holland at the World Cup in the summer and initially was said to be disappointed that Forrest had lost out to Sheffield Wednesday in the race to sign Wim Jonk.

28:08Van Hooydonk had got 34 goals for Forrest in the championship the season before. But also, I mean, people don't really talk about this, was the players that Forrest sold as much as they didn't buy. You know, Colin Cooper, who was the club captain, goes to Middlesbrough and Van Hooydonk's partner, Kevin Campbell, from the season before, goes to Turkey initially and then Everton bring him back on loan in January. He gets nine goals in eight games for them and basically keeps them up. So whilst Van Hooydung's actions were ridiculous and he is still a fairly reviled figure in Nottinghamshire, there was some credence to his argument.

28:42Stuart Finch says, I seem to remember a Forrest game when Pierre Van Hooydung scored and his teammates refused to celebrate with him. Into that near post and it's a goal and Van Hooydung has scored it. Forest, one down minutes ago, are now in the lead and Van Hooydok has a very private celebration. I mean, I know Carlos Tevez pulled this a little bit later on, but this was fairly unprecedented stuff as well, wasn't it? A player just saying, yeah, I'm not turning up. It was, and it was also reflective of just how good Van Hooydok was in that Forest team. You know, we had St. Colima before him who tore up the first division before the Premier League, but I mean, Van Hooydonk in that previous season, his free kicks alone were worth the entrance.

29:23He was a remarkable player who had a fairly remarkable personality to match and an ego. And I don't think Forrest probably would have stayed up if he'd have played all season. They'd obviously got a lot closer. But yeah, he was not necessarily liked in the dressing room anyway, shall we say. And that certainly happened after he'd gone on strike. I remember a post-match interview with him, which I think is on the Premier League years, where he's named a man of the match after coming back. and the poor guy asking the questions sort of says... You worked very hard yourself, didn't you? The goal and the header off the line.

29:53Do you feel you're building bridges now with the rest of the players? Building bridges? I think you're... I don't really like your questions. They are a bit negative. And he says, oh, we're happy how you've played. And he just holds up his man in the match ward and says, well, what do you think? And it was the sense that he didn't even have the wherewithal to try and build any bridges at Forest, even after he'd come back, that annoyed most people, I think. Yeah, there was also a good training ground squabble between Ron Atkinson and Pierre Van Hooydonk where Atkinson had recently appeared in a carling advert and they had a bit of an argument on the training pitch and Van Hooydonk shouted at him, the only reason they got you on that carling advert was because you're the biggest pub manager in this country, which I quite like.

30:32Brilliant. Big Ron who'd taken over at the city ground from Harry Bassett but famously debuted by sitting in the wrong dugout. Yeah, this was in the game against Arsenal. His excuse for it was that when he was an opposition manager, the home dugout used to be in that position and the away dugout in a different position further down the line. But it's not my worst memory of this day. As I say, I had a season ticket during this season and I, along with the other Forest supporters, were given paper hats with Come On Big Ron written on them. I think there's still one kicking about at my mum's house somewhere and when the team came out, they played the Gary Glitter song, Do You Want To Be In My Gang?

31:14and yeah not good anything else before we leave season 98 99 Michael well I think it's worth pointing out that unless I've missed someone this was surely the last example of joint managers in the Premier League and I thought Liverpool handled this really badly Roy Evans had done a decent job there in the 90s he'd won the League Cup he'd taken them you know relatively close to the title on a couple of occasions there was a sense that Liverpool needed to be professionalized I think they looked at what Arsene Wenger did at Arsenal and thought they want someone in that mould. So I saw Gerard Houllier, who had a good reputation, albeit having, you know, had a disappointing time when he was in charge of the France job, but he came over.

31:55But they should have just got rid of Evans and brought in Houllier. They tried to do this joint manager thing where it seemed as if Houllier was brought in, well, certainly without Evans' demand. Evans certainly didn't want him there. But they kind of seemed to imply that Houllier was the main man while they were still joint managers and i just thought it was quite a poor way to treat roy evans who'd been a little club servant for a number of years and i don't think it's any surprise that one it didn't last long and two we haven't seen any examples of joint managers since yeah well i'm a lovely chat and also and i'd forgotten this quite a ringer for kind of dr strange love era peter sellers or not possibly not anyway i have to take your word for that well thanks to matt daniel and Michael and to producer Charlie and Ulyss.

32:40We've got more Totally Gold for you this time next week and we'll also be back as mentioned on Tuesday looking back at the first weekend of Club World Cup knockout action. Do hope you'll join us for that but now from all of us here it's goodbye.

32:55You've been listening to The Totally Football Show, part of the Athletic FC podcast network. For more great football podcasts like this one including The Athletic FC and our six dedicated club podcasts search for The Athletic on Apple Spotify and all the usual places. The Totally Football Show is an Athletic Media Company production.

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