An evocative match-up: Manchester United v Ajax is a fixture with rich pedigree
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Updated 24/05/2017 at 16:14 GMT
Daniel Harris revisits the dramatic 1977 UEFA Cup tie between Manchester United and Ajax.
Manchester United 1977
Image credit: Imago
Ajax and Manchester United are two of the most evocative names in world football. The mythology of both clubs, trumped only by their self-mythology, takes in the full gamut of footballing idealism: a fast, inventive, attacking style; young, maverick players; and raucous, cocky support.
Accordingly, Ajax versus Manchester United sounds like a classic fixture of world football. Except in competition, the pair have only been paired together twice: more recently, in the Europa League of 2011-12, and more iconically, in the Uefa Cup of 1976-77.
Both clubs were regenerating at the time. In 1973, Johan Cruyff left Amsterdam for Barcelona, then in 1974 Johan Neeskens did likewise before, in 1975, Johnny Rep went to Valencia. The three-time champions of Europe were reduced to finishing third in the Eredivisie, so announced a specific rebuilding plan, but following a further third-place finish, appointed their third manager in three seasons: Tomislav Ivic, who joined from Hajduk Split.
He made a reasonable start, and Ajax led the league for a time. But they struggled to dominate games, especially away from home, and wound up finishing third again, three points behind champions PSV Eindhoven.
United's decline began a decade earlier. Though they won the European Cup in 1968, the team had peaked in 1965, and when Matt Busby, Bobby Charlton, Paddy Crerand and Denis Law departed, George Best was left with too much to do. But then, in December 1972, Tommy Docherty arrived – or “bounced in,” as Sammy McIlroy, one of his players, puts it.
He was a very, very bubbly character. Football daft, everything was about football. And that Scottish brogue he had, he got everyone up and ready for a fight.
In the first instance it was enough to stave off relegation, but the following season United succumbed.
A distraught Docherty wept openly, before turning calamity into opportunity.
"We got a complete set of new young players, Stevie Coppell, Gordon Hill," McIlroy recalls:
He blended all these new young kids in and for three years we were enjoying our football, our football was unbelievable and that was down to the way he got us playing.
United went straight back up as champions and, fortified with confidence by a manager who just told them to keep it going, they threatened to win Division 1 too. In the event they could not stay the course, also losing to Southampton in the FA Cup final. So Docherty simply promised that they'd be back the following year to go one better.
And United's third place finish meant that they were back in Europe for the first time since 1968-69, to the delight of all involved with the club. In 1956, United had defied the FA to compete in the European Cup, then lost eight players at Munich in 1958 before finally finding some catharsis ten years later. The period was defined by rebelliousness, youthfulness, open-mindedness and doggedness; the pioneering spirit, appetite for a challenge and strength in adversity define not only Manchester United but Manchester.
“United belonged in European football,” says McIlroy. “It was a long, long time getting back into it and when we first did that it was a great feeling of delight to say right, we’re back in here, let’s do the best that we can.” And then they drew Ajax, “a great name in Europe that really got us up for it.”
Docherty, though, continued as usual, co-ordinated plenty of shadow play, working on his team's shape with the ultimate aim of getting balls into the box from wide areas and at different angles. He did note that Ajax "used to pass and move, pass and move, pass and move, skilful players,” but that was about it, McIlroy says:
He didn’t really talk about the opposition a lot, it was always about what we did. And we were an attack-minded side with wingers and midfielders joining in with the front people, and going up and down, up and down – we were very very fit and it was a joy to play in those teams.
Without a Euro tie in more than six years, the fans were as excited as the players, and more than 7,000 of them made their way to the Olympisch Stadium, getting themselves thoroughly olympisched in its honour. But with authorities spooked by the fear of trouble they were treated as a threat – “surrounded by fencing, spikes, foam-mouthed hounds and fomenting police”, recount Richard Kurt and Chris Nickeas in their indispensable Red Army Years.
But their presence gave the players a lift - not McIlroy believes they really needed it:
We played one way. Trying to win games. We believed in ourselves, if we played well it’d take a good side to beat us. We were a young side with plenty of energy, and no matter who we played, we tried to win the game.
To do that they would need to keep Rudi Krol quiet. The last of the greats still in Amsterdam, Krol was an attacking defender able to see space, burst into it, and shoot with power and accuracy. He was the man selected as the programme cover star, his look that of a flamboyant and temperamental actor nailed for homicide by a young Columbo.
The visiting XI, meanwhile, was set-out in 4-2-4 formation and featured forward-thinking midfielders, flying wingers and two strikers; now that is "playing the way that United should".
And, clad in deep blue shirts, deep blue shorts and blood red stockings they started.
Within four minutes, Stuart Pearson had a shot cleared off the line. But then on 41 minutes Krol took the ball off Rene Notten midway inside the United half, advanced, played a one-two with Frank Arnesen that took him past Coppell, beat Gerry Daly, and thumped home a goal so good that even some of the away fans were moved to applause.
In the second half, though, Macari and Daly took control of midfield, allowing United’s wingers to stretch the game; Stewart Houston’s shot looked to be over the line when Piet Schrijvers grabbed it and Hill forced him into a good save before Macari’s deflected shot hit the post. But in those days a 1-0 away defeat was a fair result, all the more so as Ajax had expected an easier night; United’s performance “shook them a wee bit”, says McIlroy. Docherty, meanwhile, was typically bullish. “That won’t be enough pal,” he told Ivic.
United’s contingent duly made their way home – “on our ferry, 2,000 landlubber Mancs all seasick,” recalls Tony Granelli. But to make them feel at home, the captain announced his hope that “United wipe the floor with Ajax,” a treat for all fans of cleaning-fluid related puns.
But the Dutch side enjoyed a comfortable run-up to the second leg, beating EVV and NAC, wanting Steve’s AP, watching QVC.
United, on the other hand, beat Middlesbrough, but not before Jack Charlton’s cloggers had injured Coppell, Macari, Pearson and Greenhoff. Then, in their next game – a League Cup replay with Sunderland – they needed a late own-goal to snaffle a second replay, hardly ideal preparation for the derby match which followed. And Manchester City, themselves involved in a Uefa Cup tie against Juventus, took an early lead and United lost Pearson, before going 2-1 in front, benefitting from a wrongly disallowed equaliser, and scoring again to seal the win.
The day before the Ajax return, Kurt and Nickeas note, the UK had other matters on its collective mind. With the pound collapsing, Dennis Healey, Labour’s chancellor of the exchequer, decided that the best way to rescue it was a loan from the IMF, the terms of which allowed it to supervise the economy. Having previously proposed a wealth tax, he would end up implementing wage controls, measures which victimised the working classes his party was formed to represent; at Old Trafford the following night, the uplifting properties of football taught by Matt Busby were needed more fervently than usual.
And Docherty was in the mood. “The first leg in Amsterdam reflected so much that is good in sport,” he wrote in his programme notes. “The match was fought in a hard, competitive spirit, but there was nothing vicious. It was in fact extremely sporting with the emphasis on skill and entertainment. I am sure this evening's second leg will be equally exciting and fairly played”.
United were forced to make one change from the first game, Pearson replaced by David McCreery – “full of running, brave as a lion, he could put people under pressure for a little man,” says McIlroy – but Macari, also a doubt, declared himself fit.
And Old Trafford was ready to do its part too, the atmosphere inside the ground up there with the most intense European nights, and the players were similarly primed. McIlroy recalls:
We set our stall out to really get into them in the first 20 minutes. But we knew we had to be patient.
In the first instance, though, their fire was doused by Ajax’s subtler style, and they needed Alex Stepney to make three fine saves from Ruud Geels.
Eventually, though, United inched their way into the game, Jimmy Nicholl and Daly forcing the ball wide for Hill as the Ajax defence stepped up, and when Schrijvers could only parry his shot, Macari arrived to tuck away the rebound just before McCreery.
“Once we got the first one we knew we could do it,” says McIlroy, but at the start of the second half Ajax again looked the more dangerous side. Comfortably absorbing United's pressure, they also broke swiftly – most notably through Arnesen, who went through on goal, but again Stepney was there, diving at his feet to smother the opportunity.
Hill then claimed a foul in the box only for the referee to rule that he had dived, corrupted, no doubt, by the malign influence of all his foreign team-mates, and shortly afterwards Docherty decided to act. So off went Daly and on came the teenager Arthur Albiston; he took up at left-back, Houston moved into the middle of defence, and Brian Greenhoff, another of the manager’s youngsters, was sent upfield. “He could really play,” says McIlroy. “Centre-back, midfield and as a makeshift striker at times – and he’s also been in goal as well!”
So he could. The reconfiguration – what soon became known as “the Ajax plan” – jiggered the away team’s marking, and United began seriously testing Schrijvers. "I have never seen a player stamp his personality on a game more than Greenhoff did on a night of sudden magic,” wrote Roland Crowther in the Daily Mail.
Within five minutes, Nicholl had crossed and Coppell had controlled beautifully, just inside the box, then laid the ball into the path of Greenhoff, haring around the outside of the defence. While arms were forlornly raised for offside, he squared, McIlroy, tapped home the winner, and set off to scale the Stretford End fence.
I was so excited, my team-mates tried to catch me up but I don’t think they could. Just the noise, that thrill, just to run and celebrate. I could’ve done anything, I was so excited by the winner I could’ve ran out of the ground, it was a fantastic feeling. The place went mad!
-- Daniel Harris. With thanks to Sammy McIlroy, Alan Hargrave and Tony Granelli.
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