ESPN Classic at 8.35pm

SKY Ch 442

Fukkin hell, was the crowd about 400 that night - the place is empty

The attendance was 17,804 and I believe that around 12,000 of that were Aberdeen fans. I think I read that more tickets then that had been sold but many of the neutrals were put off by the bad weather.

How many fans did Madrid have? I take it their fans didn't take it that seriously?

There may have been an element of that, but Real Madrid weren't then the European force that they'd been in the fifties or again became in the nineties, so I'd imagine that this final was a big deal for the club and its fans. The Champions Cup wasn't the monster it is now either, meaning that the two other European competitions, despite having less prestige than the big one, were still regarded as huge prizes and I don't think any club treated them with anything other than the utmost seriousness.
The biggest factor was that fans simply didn't travel abroad in such big numbers then. This would have been the case in particular for followers from less affluent countries and in those days, Spain could fit into that category.
In European finals, it would be normal for local neutrals to be expexted to make up a significant chunk of the crowd. This was also the case for World Cup and European Championship group games at finals tournaments.
The explanation about the weather keeping lots of Swedes indoors sounds pretty plausible to me.

Aye, weather was shocking

That's a cracking channel that ESPN Classics - I've set it to record about 10 programmes while I'm away in France this week

Most clubs would have tried to win anything. Real Madrid, however, have only ever been interested in the Champions Cup.

I'd agree with that. The Cup Winners Cup was also the least of the three, ffs, you didn't even have to win your domestic cup to enter it (and win it). I think Madrid looked down their noses at the CWC and Uefa Cup. Dicks.

Few things wind up Dons fans like being told the above.

I'd have said that the CWC was regarded as the middle one of the three trophies. It was older than the UEFA Cup - not sure about the age of the Fairs right enough.
The fact that The UEFA had a two legged final always detracted from it a bit I thought, although you could argue that it was the toughest of the lot to win as it featured an extra round.

Had the Cup Winners Cup still been around we'd have had the likes of Dunfermline entering it on the back of being pumped by the League Champions. Diddy European trophy, IMO. Glad it was scrapped.

The way the European club trophies have been mucked about in the interests of the big clubs from the big leagues in recent seasons is one of the tragedies of the game in my view.
You're maybe trying to wind up Aberdeen/Rangers fans by dismissing the tournament - I don't know, but it was exciting and it made sense.
What's needed is a return to the three trophies, with the big one reserved for league champions and the re-introduction of the eight diddies rule, which actually had a pretty short life, otherwise Liverpool, Forest and Villa would have been buggered.
Anyway, by your 'logic', Cup runners up who lost to a CL team like erm.. us, now get to enter a more prestigious competition.

The weather was indeed abysmal that night. I was at the game with a couple of Dons fans I knew from Uni. It was a fantastic game to be at. Excellent Aberdeen team.

Even though we reached the semi final of it in 1969 and only lost out by the odd goal to eventual winners Slovan Bratislava, who defeated Barcelona in the final? And we got in after horsing Hearts 3-1 to win the Scottish Cup- all the qualifiers had to win a domestic cup.

I think scrapping it has been a negative. All its done is increase the CL, making the "bigger" teams richer and stronger while clubs from smaller countries are left weaker. It was also a good tournament.

The Champions League IMO is a joke; they should rename it the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th place league.

In 1994, IFK Gothenburg defeated Man Utd and knocked them out. When was the last time a Swedish team made it into the CL?

Its all about favouring the "big" countries and their big teams now. And scrapping the CWC went a long way in that.