‘The European Cup has become a historical anachronism … it is not modern thinking,’ remarked Silvio Berlusconi when Diego Maradona’s Napoli were pitted against six-time European champions Real Madrid in the very first round of the competition in 1987/88. ‘It is economic nonsense,’ he said, ‘that a club such as Milan might be eliminated in the first round.’

He wanted the security of more games and turned to a Saatchi & Saatchi executive to design a European Super League to put pressure on UEFA. The man behind the idea that led to the Champions League and the Premier League was Alex Fynn and he joins Martyn to chat about his reasoning, having his head turned by Berlusconi, the background to such a climate of change in football at the time and why the idea hasn't died. 

Martyn also proposes his new format and awaits UEFA's response. 

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We round off season 1986/87 with one of the turning points in late 20th century English football as a favourite son returned to Highbury to restore a faded country house. Jon Spurling joins Martyn to discuss the original choices before Graham, how he set about reconnecting Arsenal with its past, some signs of what was in store in the future and that first silverware on the board even when Ian Rush had scored the opening goal...

Jon's book on the era is All Guns Blazing and can be found here https://amzn.eu/d/0c0DV54h

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For all the changes implemented in the era, this was a quiet revolution. Quietly adopted as a mechanism to help adjust the number of teams in the First Division, it was quickly obvious that there was something to it and so, a dramatic end of to season was born. Richard Foster, author of The Agony and The Ecstasy: The Comprehensive History of the Football League Play-Offs, joins Martyn to explain why and how they began, those first matches and how it evolved into something very different.

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The years between English and Italian dominance of European competition is perhaps best exemplified by 1986/87. Porto's persistence pays off with a European Cup Final goal that should be better remembered, Dundee United make history in the Nou Camp but come up agonisingly short again and a young Ajax side pick up silverware courtesy of the new sensation in European football. 

Martyn and Michael Hamlen from 80s&90sFootball take a look at all three competitions and take in stories from Wrexham to Real Madrid in the process.

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Most of the seismic decisions that have shaped the football history of the 80s and 90s have been external to the actual business of the game itself. However, 1986/87 saw the most significant managerial change of the era at Old Trafford. Gary Cook from Retro Football Network joins Martyn to re-assess Ron Atkinson's time in the job, the specifics that led to his dismissal in November 1986, the reception for Alex Ferguson and just how difficult it is to turn around a big club.

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If winning the World Cup with Argentina in favourable conditions was one thing then guiding Napoli to their first ever league title was a completely different challenge. The south was not supposed to win Scudetti after all. Dominic Hougham and Martyn review a famous season in Italy, discuss whether or not it would be possible without the World Cup win and if this is the greatest 12 months that one footballer has ever enjoyed.

Furthermore, on our epic journey through football history, Serie A's time has now very much begun.

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The images of Everton's successes in 1984 and 1985 and burned onto the collective memory. So too, perhaps, their agonising failure in missing out on the Double in 1986. But why is their title win in 1986/87 so hidden in the shadows of time? Gary Naylor joins Martyn to throw some light on the triumph despite injuries and the sale of a goal machine and why the season as a whole does not find resonance at all.

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Martyn is joined by Gary Cook from the brilliant Retro Football Network to talk about his new publication, the importance of preserving the past online, arrested development and if younger generations have the need to search out history when they have so much of the present to consume. 

The physical copy of Retro Football can be found at https://amzn.eu/d/049QCZzk

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Post Heysel, everyone in English football had resigned themselves to losing their best players east and south onto the continent's highest stages. Nobody considered that some may travel north. Martyn and John Mackay gladly recount just how Scottish football was turned upside down, the traditional flow of talent was reversed and how Graeme Souness found instant success.

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We are back on our journey through the 80s and 90s as we start our series on 1986/87. The second half of the eighties was arguably the greatest run of FA Cup Finals and this season's may sit above them all. From the fourth round victory at Old Trafford, Coventry City's joint managerial team of John Sillett and George Curtis were adamant that this could be their year. Standing in the Wembley Way would be a Spurs side whose treble dreams had faded but who still had the opportunity to send Glenn Hoddle off in style.

Author Richard Chamberlain joins us to discuss the most famous season in Coventry's history as well as some other great FA Cup stories along the way.

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