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Jon McLeod looks back on the season Liverpool were last crowned champions of England.

The long-term significance
Tremors that would come to shape the landscape of English football were felt in 1989-90. UEFA announced that clubs would be readmitted to European competition following a five-year ban due to the Heysel disaster, while Aston Villa appointed the first foreign manager in the English top flight when Jozef Venglos replaced England-bound Graham Taylor at the end of the season. Liverpool claimed their last title to date and Alex Ferguson dodged the bullet at Man Utd.

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Dear WSC
In WSC 272 Jonathan O’Brien finds it remarkable that Celtic’s Bertie Auld “straightfacedly asserts that beating Dunfermline in the Scottish Cup final in 1965 was more important than the title win a year later”. But Auld is not alone in his assertion. No less a man than Jock Stein said in the Dunfermline history Black and White Magic: “It wouldn’t have gone as well for Celtic had they not won this game.” The Celtic history The Glory and the Dream also notes: “The largest framed photograph in [Stein’s] office at Celtic Park showed Billy McNeill borne aloft at the end of the match.”Celtic had won nothing since “the 7-1 game”, a freakish League Cup final triumph over Rangers in 1957. So this win, Stein’s first trophy seven weeks after officially becoming manager, stopped a rot which was threatening to turn Celtic into also-rans in Scotland. Without it the Lisbon Lions may never have been and there may only ever have been one “nine-in-a-row” in Scottish football. And that would never do.
Mark Murphy, Chessington

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Brian Gibbs looks back to when Jimmy Hill guided Coventry City to promotion and Notts County had their worst ever season

The long-term significance
Jimmy Hill had been a reasonably successful player with Fulham, for whom he was top scorer in their Second Division promotion season of 1957-58. He was also noted for being the only bearded footballer of the era, which led to his being nicknamed “the rabbi” and “the beatnik” by team-mates. Hill became a national public figure through his leadership of the players’ union, the PFA, during its campaign against the maximum wage, which was finally abandoned in 1961.

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Two decades on from the Hillsborough disaster John Williams looks back to April 15, 1989 and how the day’s events came to shape the very identity of Liverpool FC

Twenty years. Is it really that long ago? Where exactly did those two decades go? Squandered, in the main, I hear Reds fans say, by Messrs Souness, Evans and Houllier, our chaotic managers, and by various erratic (and worse) board members and owners. The current manager – one European Cup already won, but by glorious default – is trying hard to show he is more than a free-spending complainer and fiddler: a match at last for the fearsome Ferguson. Maybe he really is.

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While the steel city rivals squabble, Doncaster’s pragmatism is paying off. Glen Wilson assesses the mood in South Yorkshire

At the Keepmoat Stadium there is a bloke on my row who is notoriously hard to please. A frustrated yell of “No, not backwards” will greet any pass Doncaster Rovers play towards their own goal. Passes hit in the other direction are “just another bloody lump for’ards” while anything in between constitutes “fannying around with it”. In the midst of a poor run earlier this season we timed his first damning bellow of “Nooooo” at just 34 seconds after kick-off.

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