Belfast, September 1970. Northern Ireland’s bad old days...
Football was bravely trying to persist in the province despite depressing, chaotic, civil disorder. Violence would eventually escalate so badly that two years later no Irish League club would enter any of the European competitions, and the national team was forced to play ‘home’ games on the British mainland, a temporary arrangement which lasted three years.
But back to 1970. Linfield’s Irish Cup win had propelled them into the following season’s European Cup Winners’ Cup competition and Belfast Bluemen eagerly anticipating the draw were left rubbing their hands. Linfield had only gone and been paired against the cup-holders, Manchester City, then as now, one of the glamour clubs in England.