A decade of 80s football: 1985/86

These Football Times

A season that began in the shadow of Bradford and Heysel, with a blackout of TV coverage and the implications of the European ban, 1985/86 emerged as a campaign full of highlights. In the title race, Manchester United started like a train and ended like a rag and bone cart, West Ham couldn’t quite come through on the rails, Everton long looked like champions, but, in the end, it was Liverpool who won the title. Of course they did, this was the 1980s. But did they have to win the double as well? Oxford had a memorable first season in the top flight and won the League Cup to boot, there were plastic pitches at Luton and QPR, and Hearts blew the double in Scotland in the course of a heartbreaking, or Hearts-breaking, week. Sorry.