Sunday hello —
This is the first Sunday digest from OTD: Your Daily Dose of Soccer History. Every Sunday from now on, this email rounds up the seven stories from the past week — for those of you who’d rather catch up once a week than read every day.
It’s been a real first week on Substack. Thank you to everyone who has subscribed. We are 184 episodes in (185 tomorrow), and here’s the week:
Monday — 27 April 1974: The Saddest Backheel in Manchester. Denis Law, Manchester United’s Holy Trinity icon, scored a backheel for City at Old Trafford and refused to celebrate. United were relegated. Football decided he’d done it. The math says he hadn’t.
Tuesday — 28 April 1923: The White Horse Final. The very first match at Wembley. Bolton beat West Ham 2-0 — but nobody remembers the goals. They remember a grey horse named Billie that looked white in the photographs, and the 200,000+ crowd he helped clear off the pitch.
Wednesday — 29 April 1971: The Priest Who Silenced La Plata. Possibly the strangest goal in Copa Libertadores history. A Basque missionary priest, playing for an Ecuadorian club founded by a Catalan, scored the only goal in La Plata to give Estudiantes their first ever home defeat in the competition. “Blessed be the boots of Father Bazurko.”
Thursday — 30 April 1938: The Final Where the Commentator Ate His Hat. The first fully televised FA Cup Final. 119 minutes. Still 0-0. BBC’s Thomas Woodrooffe vowed to eat his hat if a goal went in. Seconds later, Bill Shankly (yes, that Shankly) played the through-ball that won the penalty. Woodrooffe ate a hat made of cake and marzipan.
Friday — 1 May 1958: The First Fairs Cup Finally Ends. A football tournament that took three years to finish, became the UEFA Cup, and eventually the Europa League. Also the day OTD turned six months old.
Saturday — 2 May 2016: The Night Leicester Won It. A match that belonged to three clubs at once. Leicester were 5000-1 outsiders at the start of the season. By the time Hazard’s curler went in, they were champions.
Sunday (today) — 3 May 1949: El Dorado Begins in Colombia. A player strike ends, and one of football’s wildest markets opens. Pedernera, Rossi, Di Stéfano — and the Colombian league that briefly outpaid the rest of the world.
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Tomorrow’s episode (4 May): Queens Park Rangers were fifteen minutes from being champions of England. Then Liverpool happened.
If you’ve enjoyed any of these, the most generous thing you can do is forward this email to one friend who’d like it. Or rate the show on Apple, Spotify, or Amazon Music — all of them genuinely move the needle.
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Thanks for being here.
— 17 Laws Guy