I thought I would take a look at the three clubs who managed just 1 season in the Premier League. How did they get promoted, and where did it go wrong ?
I ll start with Swindon in the season of 93/94
In their 6th season in the second tier - Swindon got promoted after winning the play-off final against Leicester in 1993. It was a very experienced side with player-manager Glenn Hoddle and Micky Hazard in central midfield. 29 year old Shaun Taylor and 27 year old Colin Calderwood in central defence started every single game. At left back they had 28 year old welsh international Paul Bodin with 26 year old David Kerslake on the right side of defence. Wingers/attackers were 26 year old Martin Ling, 33 year Steve White, 30 year old David Mitchell, 21 year old Nicky Summerbee, the 20 year old utility player Kevin Horlock and the main striker - 24 year old Craig Maskell.
Defensively Swindon were shaky all season as they got promoted. 8 times in 46 matches they conceded 3 goals or more, 11 more the opponents scored twice against them. But going forward they did score a lot of goals and new signing Craig Maskell from Reading was the pick of the bunch. Despite missing 2 months of the season from february to april he still scored 18 league goals. The defenders also contributed a lot. Shaun Taylor was a huge threat on set-pieces and scored 11 times, his partner Calderwood added 2. Left back Paul Bodin scored 11 goals including 4 penalties - and the experienced strikers Mitchell and White added a total of 19 goals.
Swindon ended 5th with 76 points and were never close to automatic promotion. Newcastle with a certain Andy Cole picked up 96 points and West Ham ended 2nd with 88 points grabbed those 2 spots. But they were never in danger of losing the play-off spot, and they ended 6 points above Millwall who ended 7th - and this despite Swindon only picking up 2 points from the last 4 games.
After beating Tranmere 5-3 on aggregate, Leicester were waiting in the final. And the match is probably still the best play-off final every played. After Hoddle gave Swindon the lead 1-0 just before the break, the game exploded in the second half. Taylor headed home 2-0, Maskell made it 3-0. Julian Joachim pulled a goal back - and in the space of 1 minute Steve Walsh and Steve Thomson scored twice for Leicester. And with 25 minutes played of the second half, the match was tied at 3-3. Just 6 minutes from the end Swindon were awarded a very questionable penalty after keeper Kevin Poole was penalized for pulling down Steve White. Paul Bodin stepped up and in his usual way hammered the ball into the net. Swindon were promoted.
The summer of 1994.
Any chance of Swindon surviving in the Premier League were probably destroyed in the summer of 1993. Chelsea who became the first team to sack their manager in the Premier League (Ian Porterfield), decided not to retain interim manager and Chelsea legend David Webb and instead got Glenn Hoddle to join them as new manager. John Gorman who had worked as Hoddle's assistant was expected to follow Hoddle to Chelsea, but instead was appointed new manager at Swindon. After first losing their player-manager Hoddle, soon their captain was out the door as well. Spurs signed Colin Calderwood. He was replaced by 32 year old dutch defender Luc Nijholt, signed from Motherwell for just £175.000. Hoddle wasn't replaced - instead Gorman felt John Moncur would be good enough to fill the void. Moncur had missed most of the promotion winning season through injury after joining from Spurs in the summer on 1992. Up front Gorman went big by signing Norwegian international Jan Åge Fjørtoft from Rapid Wien for £500.000 and 29 year old striker Andy Mutch from Wolves. Mutch had played 7 seasons for Wolves and did really well for himself, but was most famous for being Steve Bull's striking partner at Wolves. In addition Gorman signed defender Adrian Whitbread from Leyton Orient and experienced midfielder Keith Scott from Wycombe Wanderers.
In goal they continued with former United-youngster Fraser Digby and former Arsenal-youngster Nicky Hammond. Nicky Bodin would continue as left wing-back and youngster Nicky Summerbee played on the right. Shaun Taylor and Luc Nijholt would be in central defence alongside 22 year old new signing Adrian Whitbread in a 3-5-2 formation.
John Moncur would replace Hoddle. Martin Ling would take one of the other positions in midfield and Hazard, Horlock and new signing Keith Scott would fight it out for the last position. Up front Fjortoft would be the leading striker - and one of Andy Mutch and Craig Maskell was expected to partner him.
The matches in 93/94
The season started with 2 defeats, but Swindon played well and were unlucky not to get points from both games. Sheffield United struck twice late in the game to win 3-1, and Oldham got an injury-time winner. But 0-5 at home to Liverpool and 1-5 away to Southampton was an indication that this season would be tough. Swindon often came close to getting a win or a point, but didn't score enough goals and were poor defensively. The next 11 games ended with 5 defeats and 6 wins. What was extra worrying was that the majority of the goals were scored by Bodin on penalties, or Taylor on set-pieces. After 15 games - their strikers had scored a total of 3 goals. Record-signing Fjørtoft was yet to score.
3 months into the season the curse was broken as Keith Scott scored the winner against QPR. But things were in no way about to get better. Swindon picked up 1 win and 4 draws in the next 10 games, and they were now leaking goals. 0-4 against Arsenal, 3-3 against Sheffield Wednesday and 2-6 against Everton. When Swindon played Spurs on January 15th they had won 2 matches, lost 14 and drawn 10. A total of 16 points from 26 matches. But for 2 weeks things took a turn for the better. Jan Åge Fjørtoft scored his first goal as Swindon beat Spurs 2-1, and 2 weeks later he got a hat-trick as Swindon beat Coventry. Suddenly there were hopes that Swindon could survive as they were not far behind Oldham, Ipswich, Southampton or Sheffield United. Fjørtoft continued to score a lot of goals, he grabbed 8 more in the last 14 games of the season and ended up with 12 league goals. All of them scored in the last 16 league matches.
The problem was that while Swindon improved going forward, they were awful defensively in the last 3 months of the season. 0-5 against Aston Villa, 3-3 against Norwich, 1-7 against Arsenal, 0-5 against Leeds and 2-4 against Wimbledon were some of the results at the end of the season. And despite Fjørtoft scoring 8 goals in the last 14 games, Swindon won just once and lost 8 of those games. Swindon ended last, 13 points behind Ipswich who were the last team to avoid relegation. Just to make matter worse, in the final game of the season Swindon played Leeds at home and if the visitor scored 5 goals, Swindon would be the first Premier League club to concede 100 goals. After 67 minutes Leeds were 4-0 up, but Swindon looked able to avoid getting that 5th goal against. But in injury time, Leeds got a corner which ended on Chris Faircloughs head and Swindon had lost 5-0 and conceded 100 goals.
Where did the stars go ?
For a majority of the players they would vanish in the lower leagues - but a few of their players actually had a good career after the awful season. John Moncur joined West Ham and played 9 seasons there. Nicky Summerbee followed in his father Mike Summerbees footsteps and joined City. Mike Summerbee was a legend for City and played 10 seasons for the club in the 60s and 70s. His son Nicky stayed 3 seasons at City before joining Sunderland. Kevin Horlock stayed a few seasons more at Swindon before he also joined Manchester City where he stayed for 6 seasons. Jan Åge Fjørtoft joined Middlesbrough and later Barnsley and Sheffield United.
I ll start with Swindon in the season of 93/94
In their 6th season in the second tier - Swindon got promoted after winning the play-off final against Leicester in 1993. It was a very experienced side with player-manager Glenn Hoddle and Micky Hazard in central midfield. 29 year old Shaun Taylor and 27 year old Colin Calderwood in central defence started every single game. At left back they had 28 year old welsh international Paul Bodin with 26 year old David Kerslake on the right side of defence. Wingers/attackers were 26 year old Martin Ling, 33 year Steve White, 30 year old David Mitchell, 21 year old Nicky Summerbee, the 20 year old utility player Kevin Horlock and the main striker - 24 year old Craig Maskell.
Defensively Swindon were shaky all season as they got promoted. 8 times in 46 matches they conceded 3 goals or more, 11 more the opponents scored twice against them. But going forward they did score a lot of goals and new signing Craig Maskell from Reading was the pick of the bunch. Despite missing 2 months of the season from february to april he still scored 18 league goals. The defenders also contributed a lot. Shaun Taylor was a huge threat on set-pieces and scored 11 times, his partner Calderwood added 2. Left back Paul Bodin scored 11 goals including 4 penalties - and the experienced strikers Mitchell and White added a total of 19 goals.
Swindon ended 5th with 76 points and were never close to automatic promotion. Newcastle with a certain Andy Cole picked up 96 points and West Ham ended 2nd with 88 points grabbed those 2 spots. But they were never in danger of losing the play-off spot, and they ended 6 points above Millwall who ended 7th - and this despite Swindon only picking up 2 points from the last 4 games.
After beating Tranmere 5-3 on aggregate, Leicester were waiting in the final. And the match is probably still the best play-off final every played. After Hoddle gave Swindon the lead 1-0 just before the break, the game exploded in the second half. Taylor headed home 2-0, Maskell made it 3-0. Julian Joachim pulled a goal back - and in the space of 1 minute Steve Walsh and Steve Thomson scored twice for Leicester. And with 25 minutes played of the second half, the match was tied at 3-3. Just 6 minutes from the end Swindon were awarded a very questionable penalty after keeper Kevin Poole was penalized for pulling down Steve White. Paul Bodin stepped up and in his usual way hammered the ball into the net. Swindon were promoted.
The summer of 1994.
Any chance of Swindon surviving in the Premier League were probably destroyed in the summer of 1993. Chelsea who became the first team to sack their manager in the Premier League (Ian Porterfield), decided not to retain interim manager and Chelsea legend David Webb and instead got Glenn Hoddle to join them as new manager. John Gorman who had worked as Hoddle's assistant was expected to follow Hoddle to Chelsea, but instead was appointed new manager at Swindon. After first losing their player-manager Hoddle, soon their captain was out the door as well. Spurs signed Colin Calderwood. He was replaced by 32 year old dutch defender Luc Nijholt, signed from Motherwell for just £175.000. Hoddle wasn't replaced - instead Gorman felt John Moncur would be good enough to fill the void. Moncur had missed most of the promotion winning season through injury after joining from Spurs in the summer on 1992. Up front Gorman went big by signing Norwegian international Jan Åge Fjørtoft from Rapid Wien for £500.000 and 29 year old striker Andy Mutch from Wolves. Mutch had played 7 seasons for Wolves and did really well for himself, but was most famous for being Steve Bull's striking partner at Wolves. In addition Gorman signed defender Adrian Whitbread from Leyton Orient and experienced midfielder Keith Scott from Wycombe Wanderers.
In goal they continued with former United-youngster Fraser Digby and former Arsenal-youngster Nicky Hammond. Nicky Bodin would continue as left wing-back and youngster Nicky Summerbee played on the right. Shaun Taylor and Luc Nijholt would be in central defence alongside 22 year old new signing Adrian Whitbread in a 3-5-2 formation.
John Moncur would replace Hoddle. Martin Ling would take one of the other positions in midfield and Hazard, Horlock and new signing Keith Scott would fight it out for the last position. Up front Fjortoft would be the leading striker - and one of Andy Mutch and Craig Maskell was expected to partner him.
The matches in 93/94
The season started with 2 defeats, but Swindon played well and were unlucky not to get points from both games. Sheffield United struck twice late in the game to win 3-1, and Oldham got an injury-time winner. But 0-5 at home to Liverpool and 1-5 away to Southampton was an indication that this season would be tough. Swindon often came close to getting a win or a point, but didn't score enough goals and were poor defensively. The next 11 games ended with 5 defeats and 6 wins. What was extra worrying was that the majority of the goals were scored by Bodin on penalties, or Taylor on set-pieces. After 15 games - their strikers had scored a total of 3 goals. Record-signing Fjørtoft was yet to score.
3 months into the season the curse was broken as Keith Scott scored the winner against QPR. But things were in no way about to get better. Swindon picked up 1 win and 4 draws in the next 10 games, and they were now leaking goals. 0-4 against Arsenal, 3-3 against Sheffield Wednesday and 2-6 against Everton. When Swindon played Spurs on January 15th they had won 2 matches, lost 14 and drawn 10. A total of 16 points from 26 matches. But for 2 weeks things took a turn for the better. Jan Åge Fjørtoft scored his first goal as Swindon beat Spurs 2-1, and 2 weeks later he got a hat-trick as Swindon beat Coventry. Suddenly there were hopes that Swindon could survive as they were not far behind Oldham, Ipswich, Southampton or Sheffield United. Fjørtoft continued to score a lot of goals, he grabbed 8 more in the last 14 games of the season and ended up with 12 league goals. All of them scored in the last 16 league matches.
The problem was that while Swindon improved going forward, they were awful defensively in the last 3 months of the season. 0-5 against Aston Villa, 3-3 against Norwich, 1-7 against Arsenal, 0-5 against Leeds and 2-4 against Wimbledon were some of the results at the end of the season. And despite Fjørtoft scoring 8 goals in the last 14 games, Swindon won just once and lost 8 of those games. Swindon ended last, 13 points behind Ipswich who were the last team to avoid relegation. Just to make matter worse, in the final game of the season Swindon played Leeds at home and if the visitor scored 5 goals, Swindon would be the first Premier League club to concede 100 goals. After 67 minutes Leeds were 4-0 up, but Swindon looked able to avoid getting that 5th goal against. But in injury time, Leeds got a corner which ended on Chris Faircloughs head and Swindon had lost 5-0 and conceded 100 goals.
Where did the stars go ?
For a majority of the players they would vanish in the lower leagues - but a few of their players actually had a good career after the awful season. John Moncur joined West Ham and played 9 seasons there. Nicky Summerbee followed in his father Mike Summerbees footsteps and joined City. Mike Summerbee was a legend for City and played 10 seasons for the club in the 60s and 70s. His son Nicky stayed 3 seasons at City before joining Sunderland. Kevin Horlock stayed a few seasons more at Swindon before he also joined Manchester City where he stayed for 6 seasons. Jan Åge Fjørtoft joined Middlesbrough and later Barnsley and Sheffield United.