The 1972–73
British Home Championship
The British Home Championship
* sco, Hame Internaitional Kemp
* gd, Farpais lìg eadar-nàiseanta
* cy, Pencampwriaeth y Pedair Gwlad, name=lang (historically known as the British International Championship or simply the International Champio ...
international
Home Nations football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
tournament was, like its predecessor in
1972
Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...
, a victim of
The Troubles in
Northern Ireland which had erupted following
Bloody Sunday the previous year. As with the previous year in the
rugby union 1972 Five Nations Championship
The 1972 Five Nations Championship was the 43rd Five Nations Championship, an annual rugby union competition contested by the men's national teams of England, France, Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and the 78th since it began as the Home Nations Cham ...
, threats were made by Republican activists against visiting British teams, which in this year meant
England and
Wales. To prevent violence but keep the tournament running,
Northern Ireland's
Northern may refer to the following:
Geography
* North, a point in direction
* Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe
* Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States
* Northern Province, Sri Lanka
* Northern Range, a r ...
"home" games were transferred to
Goodison Park, the home of
Everton F.C.
Everton Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Liverpool that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club was a founder member of the Football League in 1888 and has compe ...
in
Liverpool in England. This step meant that Ireland played just a short ferry ride from Belfast (where the match was originally scheduled) in a city with a substantial Irish population, but where the police were able to exercise a greater measure of control over who was able to attend.
The shift to England did not substantially hinder the Irish, who claimed a rare and respectable second place behind England, who achieved yet another whitewash of their near neighbours. Beating the Irish in Liverpool to match
Scotland's
Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...
win over Wales, England then inflicted defeat on the same team at Wembley, whilst the Irish recovered from their first game to beat the Scots in Scotland. In the final two games, Northern Ireland beat Wales, setting up a close encounter in the final game, in which the winner would take the tournament but a draw would benefit the Irish. The game was a close encounter, made more interesting by an English 5–0 thrashing of Scotland two months earlier in a testimonial match celebrating one hundred years of international football. England however, eventually triumphed by a single goal from Martin Peters, winning the trophy for another year.
Table
Results
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References
*
External links
Full Results and Line-ups
{{DEFAULTSORT:British
1973
Events January
* January 1 - The United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Denmark enter the European Economic Community, which later becomes the European Union.
* January 15 – Vietnam War: Citing progress in peace negotiations, U.S. ...
1973 in the United Kingdom
1972–73 in Northern Ireland association football
1972–73 in English football
1972–73 in Welsh football
1972–73 in Scottish football