The Double
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- For the novella by Fyodor Dostoevsky, see The Double: A Petersburg Poem.
The Double is a term in football, meaning to win a country's top division and its main cup competition in the same season. It can also mean beating a team home and away in the same league season. A Cup Double may refer to the winning of a country's two major cup competitions in the same season.
In an English context, it means winning the League (currently the FA Premier League and previously the Football League First Division) and the FA Cup in the same season. It was last achieved by Arsenal in 2002.
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[edit] The English Double
A complete list of seasons with The Double winning teams in England:
- Preston North End in 1889
- Aston Villa in 1897
- Tottenham Hotspur in 1961
- Arsenal in 1971
- Liverpool in 1986
- Manchester United in 1994
- Manchester United in 1996
- Arsenal in 1998
- Manchester United in 1999 (The treble with the UEFA Champions League)
- Arsenal in 2002
Arsenal and Manchester United share the record of three double wins each. Arsenal are the only club to win a double in more than one decade (1970s, 1990s and 2000s), and United's three doubles in the 1990s illustrates their domination of English football at that time.
During the first half of the 20th century, many commentators came to believe that winning the league and cup double was impossible in the modern game, partially because of the number of teams over the decades who had come close but ultimately failed to achieve the feat, often supposedly because of fixture congestion. Tottenham's double in 1961, the first of the modern era, was therefore considered at the time to be a particularly remarkable achievement which proved the conventional wisdom wrong. However the double still remained a relatively rare achievement prior to the mid-1990's.
A rarer double in English domestic football is that of the League Championship and the League Cup. This feat was first achieved in 1978 by Nottingham Forest. Liverpool achieved this double no less than three times in succession (1982, 1983 and 1984). The last of these was won with the European Cup, making it a lesser but nonetheless notable treble. Despite its dominance of the Premier League in the 1990s, Manchester United never managed to accomplish this double, as they usually fielded their reserves in the League Cup until 2005-2006. Chelsea were the last side to achieve the League/League Cup double in 2005.
The FA Cup and League Cup double was also achieved by Arsenal in 1993, when they beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 in both games. Liverpool also achieved this in 2001, along with the UEFA Cup as part of their Cup treble.
Leeds United were the first English team to win a double involving European and domestic trophies. It was in 1968 when Leeds won the Football League Cup and Inter-Cities Fairs Cup[1].
[edit] Near Doubles
A great many sides over the years have come close to winning the coveted English league and cup double but narrowly failed to do so by losing one or both of the trophies at the end of the season.
The full list of these nearly men includes:
- Manchester City in 1904, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners
- Newcastle United in 1905, league champions/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Sunderland and Aston Villa in 1913, the former league champions/F.A. Cup runners-up, the latter league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners
- Huddersfield Town in 1928, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Arsenal in 1932, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Sheffield Wednesday, in 1930, league champions and FA Cup semi-finalists. Wednesday appeared to have scored an equaliser in their semi-final, only for the referee to blow for full-time as the ball was goalbound, with only 87 minutes played.
- Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1939, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up
- West Bromwich Albion in 1954, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners
- Manchester United in 1957, league champions/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1960, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners
- Burnley in 1962, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Leeds United in 1965, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Nottingham Forest in 1968, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup semi-finalists.
- Leeds United in 1970, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up (aimed to win the treble but finished with nothing after also losing in the European Cup semi-final)
- Leeds United in 1972, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners
- Liverpool in 1974, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners
- Liverpool in 1977, league champions/F.A. Cup runners-up(also won the European Cup, would have won the treble and become the first team to win the league and cup double and a European trophy in the same season had they not lost the F.A. Cup final)
- Everton in 1985, league champions/F.A. Cup runners-up (also won the European Cup Winners' Cup, would have won a treble and become the first team to win the league and cup double and a European trophy in the same season had they not lost the F.A. Cup final)
- Everton in 1986, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up (lost the league title by two points in the final week of the season after leading the table for much of the year and lost the F.A. Cup final 3-1 after leading 1-0 with 33 minutes left on the clock, lost both trophies to arch rivals Liverpool)
- Liverpool in 1988, league champions/F.A. Cup runners-up (had a penalty saved and a goal wrongly disallowed in the F.A. Cup final)
- Liverpool in 1989, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners (after winning the F.A. Cup lost the league title on goal difference to Arsenal after conceding a last minute goal in their final match of the season against Arsenal themselves)
- Manchester United in 1995, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up (would have won three consecutive doubles had they not lost both trophies in the final week of the season)
- Arsenal in 2001, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup runners-up
- Arsenal in 2003, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners (Arsène Wenger had boasted of his team going unbeaten in the season and they led the league for much of the season, but Manchester United overhauled them near the end)
- Arsenal in 2005, league championship runners-up/F.A. Cup winners (however, Chelsea had won the league by a wide margin)
[edit] Other Doubles
The term is used outside England as well. One notable double-winning team in 2006 was Bayern Munich in Germany, which became the first team in the country's history to successfully defend a double. Inter Milan in Italy earned the double in an unusual manner in the same season, being awarded the Serie A title to go along with their on-field win in the Coppa Italia after initial league champions Juventus were stripped of the title in the aftermath of the 2006 Serie A scandal.
In countries that operate their season within a single calendar year, D.C. United won the first American Double in 1996, the Chicago Fire won the second American Double in 1998. CSKA Moscow in Russia and the Los Angeles Galaxy in the United States won doubles in 2005, and the Urawa Reds did so in Japan in 2006.
The all-time leader for domestic doubles is Linfield, from Northern Ireland, United Kingdom — with 18 as of May 2006.
[edit] Unique Double
West Bromwich Albion achieved a unique "Double" in 1931 when they became the first team to win FA Cup and promotion to the higher league in the same season (from Second Division, today's Championship to First Division, today's Premiership). 75 years later, no other team has yet achieved this feat.
[edit] All-time leader table
| Club | Nation | Number of doubles |
|---|---|---|
| Linfield |  Northern Ireland |
18 |
| Rangers |  Scotland |
17 |
| Celtic | Scotland |
13 |
| HB |  Faroe Islands |
12 |
| Muharraq Club |  Bahrain |
12 |
| Al-Ahly |  Egypt |
12 |
| Olympiakos |  Greece |
11 |
| CSKA Sofia |  Bulgaria |
10 |
| Dinamo Kyiv |  Ukraine |
10 |
| Levski Sofia | Bulgaria |
10 |
| Red Star Belgrade |  Serbia |
9 |
[edit] See also
[edit] Other sports
In auto racing, The Double is a term used for a driver on Memorial Day weekend attempting to race in two prestigious races on the same day, the Indianapolis 500 during the day and the Coca-Cola 600 during the night. Pulling "the Double" has only been possible since 1992, when the 600 began being held under the lights. Such an accomplishment can be very draining, with one driving up to 7 hours on a race track and also having to travel 430 miles from Indianapolis to Charlotte, North Carolina, where the 600 is held.
One-time Indy racer John Andretti first attempted the feat in 1994 and it has been done successfully by two other drivers since, Tony Stewart in 1999 and 2001, and Robby Gordon in 2002 and 2003. Stewart's double in 2001 is the only attempt which has encompassed all 1,100 possible miles. Gordon has also tried the double in 1997 and 2000, but rain plagued both attempts. The '97 Indy 500 was postponed by rain until the following Monday (eliminating a true "double") while the 2000 Indy 500 was rain delayed for 3 hours and prevented Gordon from officially starting the 600.
In cycling the term is used when cyclists win a two Classic cycle races courses which are considered twinned, like the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix or La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège
[edit] Notes
- ^ Krysstal. "Football : Season Details : 1968" krysstal.com (accessed 17th Oct 2006)
