93rd season of the Football League
Football league season
The
1991
?
92
season
was the 93rd completed season of
The Football League
.
Final league tables and results
[
edit
]
The tables and results below are reproduced here in the exact form that they can be found at the
RSSSF
website,
with home and away statistics separated.
First Division
[
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]
Football league season
Overview
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]
With the announcement halfway through the season that the
Football Association
would be creating a new
Premier League
of 22 clubs for the
1992?93 season
, this was the final season of the old Football League First Division as the top flight of English football. The race for the title was mostly a two-horse race between Leeds United (promoted just two years earlier and previously league champions in
1969
and
1974
) and a Manchester United who were fresh from back-to-back successes in cup competitions, but who had not won the First Division title since
1967
.
Alex Ferguson
's side had a strong first half of the season, losing just once before the end of 1991, but then lost 4?1 at home to
QPR
on New Year's Day 1992, and a shortage of goals and wins during the second half of the season cost them the title, with Leeds clinching it on the penultimate weekend of the season when they won 3?2 at
Sheffield United
and Alex Ferguson's side lost 2?0 to
Liverpool
at
Anfield
, although they did manage to win the
Football League Cup
for the first time two weeks earlier. The catalyst in the
West Yorkshire
side's title triumph had been a mid-season signing from
France
, 25-year-old striker
Eric Cantona
, who joined pre-season signing
Rod Wallace
and established stars including
Gary McAllister
,
Lee Chapman
and
Gordon Strachan
as well as promising midfielders
Gary Speed
and
David Batty
as part of the team which clinched the title. The latest additions to Manchester United's ever-changing squad were goalkeeper
Peter Schmeichel
, defender
Paul Parker
and winger
Andrei Kanchelskis
, while teenage winger
Ryan Giggs
established himself as a regular and crucial member of the first team squad before his 18th birthday, having made his debut the previous season.
Newly promoted Sheffield Wednesday had won the
Football League Cup
to end their 56-year wait for a major trophy, but were then left without a manager when
Ron Atkinson
accepted the offer to take over at Aston Villa. The
Hillsborough
club then turned to veteran striker
Trevor Francis
, who was appointed player-manager and took them to third place in the final table and into the
UEFA Cup
, delivering European qualification to the club for the first time since the 1960s. Defending champions Arsenal had a disappointing start to the season, but the £2.5million signing of striker
Ian Wright
from
Crystal Palace
in late September helped the Gunners recover their form, and they finished fourth in the final table, although their first venture into the
European Cup
for 20 years ended in the second round, and they then suffered a shock first-hurdle exit from the FA Cup at the hands of Fourth Division side Wrexham. Manchester City finished fifth for the second season running, while a Liverpool side in transition in their first full season under the management of
Graeme Souness
finished a disappointing sixth in the league but still managed to win the
FA Cup
.
West Ham United and Notts County went straight back down to the First Division after just one season, while Luton Town were relegated on the final day of the season after a decade in the First Division, with their defeat at the season's end ensuring that Coventry City secured a 26th successive season among the elite. Norwich City, who reached the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the second time in four seasons but finished 18th after a dismal end to the league season, saw their manager
Dave Stringer
resign after an eventful five seasons and hand over the reins to coach
Mike Walker
. Oldham Athletic's first top flight campaign since the 1920s saw them secure survival with a 17th-place finish and book a place in the new Premier League. Southampton spent much of the season battling against relegation before a seven-match winning run during the second half of the campaign helped lift them to safety, with all eyes at
The Dell
being on Southampton's top scorer, 21-year-old striker
Alan Shearer
, who scored on his
England
debut in February and was subject of interest from a string of bigger clubs throughout the campaign, although he decided to remain on the
South Coast
until the end of the season before manager
Ian Branfoot
invited offers with "cash plus unwanted players" in return to Shearer's services, with fees in the region of £3million being quotes and the likes of Manchester United and Liverpool being strongly linked with Shearer's signature.
As one highly promising English striker's career was taking off, a goalscoring legend was on his way out of the English league. In November 1991, Tottenham and England striker
Gary Lineker
accepted an offer to sign for Japanese side
Nagoya Grampus Eight
at the end of the season. Lineker finished the season as
PFA Player of the Year
and was among the top scorers with 28 First Division goals, before bowing out of the international scene at the
European Championship
in
Sweden
, making the last of his 80 appearances for the national side in a 2?1 defeat to
Sweden
at the end of an international career where a total of 48 goals left him just one goal short of
Bobby Charlton
's then-record of 49 England goals.
Table
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edit
]
Source:
World Football
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Goals scored
(C)
Champions;
(R)
Relegated
Notes:
- ^
Manchester United also won the
League Cup
? that UEFA Cup qualifying place was passed down to the third-placed League team.
[3]
[4]
- ^
From the 1992?93 season, the first tier became the
Premier League
, and the second tier, then known as the Second Division, was renamed to the First Division.
Results
[
edit
]
Source:
[
citation needed
]
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
Locations of the
Football League First Division 1991?1992 teams
Locations of the
Football League First Division London teams 1991?1992
Second Division
[
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]
Football league season
Overview
[
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]
The Second Division title was won by
Ipswich Town
, with
John Lyall
taking the
Suffolk club
back to the top flight after a six-year absence.
Middlesbrough
were also automatically promoted as runners-up on the final day of the season, but it was play-off winners
Blackburn Rovers
whose promotion made the biggest headlines. Bankrolled by millionaire chairman
Jack Walker
and managed by former Liverpool boss
Kenny Dalglish
, Rovers spent several million pounds of building a promotion-winning squad, clinching their promotion with a 1?0 win over
Leicester City
in the play-off final, booking a place in the new Premier League after 26 years away from the elite of the English league. Blackburn had also overcome the Second Division's other heavy-spending side,
Derby County
in the semi-finals of the playoffs. Leicester had faced a different sort of challenge in their semi-final clash, travelling to
East Anglia
for the first leg, where they were paired with a
Cambridge United
managed by
John Beck
and the attack being led by Leicester-born forward
Dion Dublin
, in hunt of a unique third successive promotion. The first leg at the
Abbey Stadium
had ended in a 1?1 draw, before Leicester triumphed 5?0 in the return leg at
Filbert Street
.
In manager
Jim Smith
's first full season as manager,
Portsmouth
just missed out on the Second Division playoffs but enjoyed a memorable run in the
FA Cup
, taking eventual winners Liverpool to a replay in the semi-finals before losing on penalties.
By the turn of 1992, fallen giants
Newcastle United
were struggling at the foot of the Second Division, millions of pounds in debt and facing relegation to the third tier for the first time ever. However, the club's future was secured in a takeover deal by millionaire
John Hall
, who sacked
Ossie Ardiles
as manager in early February and appointed former England striker
Kevin Keegan
as manager of the club where he had ended his playing career eight years earlier. Keegan kept Newcastle up and the club's new owners made money available to build a team capable of winning promotion in the 1992?93 season.
Newcastle's local rivals Sunderland were disappointing in the league, failing to mount a promotion challenge in the Second Division following their relegation the previous campaign, but reached the
FA Cup
final ? the first team from the Second Division to do so for more than a decade ? where they lost 2?0 to Liverpool.
The relegation places were occupied by
Port Vale
,
Plymouth Argyle
and
Brighton & Hove Albion
. The Valiants had been in the Second Division for the previous three seasons and had spent most of that time in the bottom half of the table, while Plymouth (who replaced manager
David Kemp
with the former England goalkeeper
Peter Shilton
in February 1992) had enjoyed six seasons in the Second Division but had also struggled for much of that time apart from a seventh-place finish in 1987. Brighton, however, had been on the brink of First Division football 12 months before being relegated, being beaten finalists in the previous season's playoff final, but the sale of players including top scorer
Mike Small
and rising debt restricting their options on the transfer market ultimately sent them down to the third tier.
Table
[
edit
]
Source:
[
citation needed
]
Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Goals scored
(C)
Champions;
(O)
Play-off winners;
(P)
Promoted;
(R)
Relegated
Results
[
edit
]
Source:
[
citation needed
]
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
The semi-finals were decided over two legs, while the final consisted a single match.
Locations of the
Football League Second Division 1991?1992 teams
Locations of the
Football League Second Division London teams 1991?1992
Third Division
[
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]
Football league season
Overview
[
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]
In their first full season under the management of
Phil Holder
, Brentford clinched in the Third Division title and won promotion to the newly rebranded Division One for the 1992?93 season, ending their 14-year run in the league's third tier. Birmingham City, another team with a new manager in the shape of
Terry Cooper
, finished runners-up to claim their return to the league's second tier at the third time of asking. In the playoffs, two newly promoted teams battled it out for a second successive promotion. Peterborough United came out 2-1 winners against Stockport County to reach the league's second tier for the first time.
Lou Macari's
first season as manager of Stoke City ended in disappointment as they finished fourth in the league but saw their promotion hopes ended by a defeat to Stockport County in the playoffs. West Bromwich Albion, in the Third Division for the first time, failed to win promotion at the first time of asking, a win at doomed Shrewsbury Town on the final day of the season not being enough to secure a playoff place. This disappointment was swiftly followed by the end of
Bobby Gould's
unpopular 15-month reign as manager. Bolton Wanderers, who had narrowly missed out on promotion the previous season, finished a disappointing 13th in the league and sacked manager
Phil Neal
after nearly seven years in charge, turning to
Bruce Rioch
as the man to mastermind their Division Two promotion challenge for the 1992?93 season.
Darlington suffered an immediate relegation back to the Fourth Division following two successive promotions, with manager
Frank Gray
unable to adjust the
County Durham
side to the pace of a higher division following the departure of his predecessor
Brian Little
in the summer of 1991. Torquay United also went straight back down to the league's basement division, following a turbulent season which saw three different men occupy the manager's seat at
Plainmoor
, with not even the mid-season signing of striker
Justin Fashanu
and his 10 goals from 21 Third Division fixtures being enough to secure survival. Shrewsbury Town also went down, as did a Bury side who had almost won promotion the previous season.
Table
[
edit
]
Results
[
edit
]
Source:
[
citation needed
]
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
The semi-finals were decided over two legs, while the final consisted of a single match.
Locations of the
Football League Third Division teams 1991?1992
Locations of the
Football League Third Division London teams 1991?1992
Fourth Division
[
edit
]
Football league season
Overview
[
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]
Following a slow start to the season which saw manager
Frank Casper
replaced by
Jimmy Mullen
in October 1991,
Burnley
made huge progress in the league and won the Fourth Division title to join
Wolverhampton Wanderers
as champions of all four divisions of the Football League, also ending their seven-year stay in the Fourth Division.
Runners-up Rotherham United and third-placed Mansfield Town achieved immediate promotion from the Fourth Division, one season after relegation. They were joined by the previous season's beaten playoff finalists Blackpool, who found themselves level with their opponents at the end of extra time as had happened a year earlier, but this time emerged victorious after defeating Scunthorpe United in the shootout.
Barnet
, in the Football League for the first time, reached the playoff semi-finals but their hopes of a second successive promotion were ended when they were beaten by Blackpool. Crewe Alexandra's hopes of an instant return to the league's third tier were ended in a similar fashion by Scunthorpe United.
On 25 March 1992,
Aldershot
were declared bankrupt and obliged to resign from the Football League ? their record was expunged. A new club to represent the
Hampshire
town was formed within weeks, but
Aldershot Town
had to start the 1992?93 season in the Third Division of
Isthmian League
? five divisions below the original club's final division.
Carlisle United
eventually finished bottom, but there was no relegation from the Football League in 1991?92 ? although Conference champions
Colchester United
were still promoted, returning to the league after a two-year absence.
Wrexham, the league's lowest placed club the previous season, made good progress in 1991?92 to finish 14th, but the big story of the season came in January 1992 when they defeated defending First Division champions Arsenal 2?1 at the
Racecourse Ground
in their FA Cup third round tie.
As the season drew to its close, speculation was mounting about the future of another club, Maidstone United, who had been without a home of their own since becoming tenants at
Dartford
in 1988 and were now hundreds of thousands of pounds in debt.
Returning to the Football League for the 1992?93 season were the Conference champions
Colchester United
, who were promoted back to the league after a two-year absence following a two-horse promotion race with
Wycombe Wanderers
.
Table
[
edit
]
Results
[
edit
]
Source:
[
citation needed
]
Legend: Blue = home team win; Yellow = draw; Red = away team win.
The semi-finals were decided over two legs, while the final consisted of a single match.
Locations of the
Football League Fourth Division teams 1991?1992
See also
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]
References
[
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]
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Seasons
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Clubs
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Competition
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Statistics
and awards
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Finances
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Associated
competitions
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National teams
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League competitions
| Levels 1?4
| |
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Level 5
| |
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Levels 6?7
| |
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Levels 8?9
|
- Isthmian League
(
Two
,
Three
)
- Combined Counties League
(
level 8 only
)
- Eastern Counties League
(
Premier
,
One
)
- Essex Senior League
(
level 8 only
)
- Hellenic League
(
Premier
,
One
)
- Kent League
(
level 8 only
)
- Midland Football Combination
(
level 8 only
)
- North West Counties League
(
One
,
Two
)
- Northern Counties East League
(
Premier
,
One
)
- Northern League
(
One
,
Two
)
- South Midlands League
(
Premier
,
One
)
- Spartan League
(
Premier
,
One
)
- Sussex County League
(
One
,
Two
)
- United Counties League
(
Premier
,
One
)
- Wessex League
(
level 8 only
)
- West Midlands (Regional) League
(
level 8 only
)
- Western League
(
Premier
,
One
)
|
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Cup competitions
| FA cups
| |
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Football League cups
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European competitions
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Domestic leagues
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Domestic cups
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League cups
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Supercups
| |
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UEFA competitions
| |
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Non-UEFA competitions
| |
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