06 Jun 2026 17:56:50.
Two transfers, I have never understood:
Kevin Keegan to Hamburg - Surely he could have chosen any top club in Europe, so why Hamburg? Sure, The Beatles had got their groove there, but it was a bombed out city at the time.
Graeme Souness - Sampdoria. Again, not exactly a top tier club at the time.
And Genoa was another European port city horribly damaged from WW2.
In both cases, they clearly were not moving for the better surroundings, but also to teams who were not Tier 1 European clubs.
Can any of the older posters explain this one?
06 Jun 2026 18:24:35
The Land Rover incident.
06 Jun 2026 18:32:43
Not an older poster but the football landscape was massively different then. Hamburg were regular league winners back then and the equivalent of Bayern now, he played in a UCL final with them and they won it not long after they left. Sampdoria slightly different, but they were still a good side.
Add in the fact only the champion qualified for the Champions League and football was a lot more competitive back then, there was no elite handful of clubs who controlled the game. Obviously you still had the super clubs like us, Ajax etc, but it was a lot more competitive. Hence why you got Champions League winners from the likes of Romania and Serbia.
Arguably it was too far the other way back then, but I'd make a case football peaked when you had the top 2 or 3 teams qualifying for the Champions League and the Cup Winners Cup existed.
Loads of movement amongst the top teams and it was unpredictable.
There were about 10+ teams who could realistically win the European Cup/Champions League every year and if a world class player came available you would have about 15/20 teams trying to sign him. Nowadays it's about 5 clubs around Europe if that, and the only way to break the monopoly is to have some mad dictator buy your club. Even then with FFP it's unlikely (can't see Newcastle challenging anytime soon).
Feel I've gone off on a tangent here but the basic point is Hamburg were a top club for a few years, just like many others. Don't forget Keegan won the Ballon d'Or while he was there.
06 Jun 2026 18:35:42
Monster, Keegan was on about 22k at Liverpool. He moved to Hamburg for about 5 x that amount. He was made the highest paid player in Germany. Taxation over there was also a lot more favourable.
They won the Cup Winners Cup in 1977 and the Bundesliga in 78/79. They went on to win the European Cup in 82/83. They were no mugs, back in the day.
06 Jun 2026 18:31:23
They moved to these places 30-40 years after the war. How long do you think it took to rebuild these cities?
06 Jun 2026 18:56:20
Souness went to Sampdoria to play against the best players in the world and multiply his salary many times over.
06 Jun 2026 19:17:29
Cookie, even in the 80s, London still had bombed out wasteland - usually bought up by NCP for parking plots. Germany was rebuilt, not immediately - but it is striking to walk around places like Munich, and see how they rebuilt the old buildings brick by brick. Not so in the UK.
A city takes a long time to recover from bombardment. In my view, Liverpool in particular was ill-served by the post war years.
One of the most beautiful cities in the UK (it was at that time equal to Edinburgh). It was devastated by cheap attempts to rebuild it after WW2. We took on the disastrous US model of driving dual carriageways between communities - isolating, and reinforcing, the poor from the rich.
So, yes, places like Genoa and Hamburg were still struggling from being blown to pieces just 30 or so years on. These were awful times.
06 Jun 2026 19:27:50
Hamburg were a top club at the time n was flush with money.
06 Jun 2026 19:55:26
Did he not win the Ballon d'Or twice back then so can't have been that bad?
06 Jun 2026 20:28:18
I was working near Hamburg when Keegan was there. He was idolised.
Everywhere we went it was Keegan this, Keegan that, they loved him. They had him up there with George Best.
06 Jun 2026 21:09:29
I used to love watching Hamburg and Sampdoria with Keegan and Souness on the Fire Stick and YouTube back in the 70's/80's.
Massive fan of those clubs back then.
06 Jun 2026 21:37:32
I love how the past can be rewritten. The UCL in the 70s and 80s? Teams from Serbia winning the UCL?
06 Jun 2026 22:19:00
We've still got a bombed out church in Liverpool.
06 Jun 2026 22:24:34
StEtienne, I think the Serbia reference was regarding Red Star Belgrade.