Football is a crazy game, and it is known for throwing out some unexpected results that shock the world. Remember when Leicester City won the Premier League after being seemingly doomed for relegation the previous season?
Or more recently, when Real Madrid and Barcelona both lost on the same night to Sevilla and Leganes respectively in the early stages of the 2018-19 La Liga campaign?
Relegation battles are often the best places to look for fairytale-like stories of teams pulling off great escapes. Here, we take a look at some of the biggest relegation survival stories ever.
Coventry City (1983/84)
A lot of younger football fans might not even know who Coventry City are, as the Ricoh Arena club is currently languishing in the third tier of English football. But for a long time, the Sky Blues were one of the top clubs in the country.
The West Midlands club spent 32 years in the top flight, and were one of the inaugural members of the Premier League. The side had a number of close shaves with relegation during their time in the elite division, but the hairiest of moments was in the 1983-84 campaign.
Bobby Gould’s side needed to win all three of their final games of the season in order to avoid the drop. Norwich City were eight points ahead of Coventry, but the Sky Blues pulled off single goal wins against Stoke City and Luton to put them within inches of survival.
They needed a win against reigning champions Everton in the final game, though, which seemed like it would be an impossible task.
Shockingly, though, goals from Mickey Adams, Terry Gibson, and a double from Cyrille Regis fired Coventry to a 4-1 victory and secured survival in the First Division at the expense of the Canaries. They were a single point ahead of the last relegated side.
Sam Allardyce was a member of the Sky Blues side that pulled off this remarkable feat; he has since become known as Fireman Sam in his managerial career thanks to pulling off similar acts of escapology.
Sunderland (2013/14)
During their time in the Premier League, Sunderland flirted with relegation to the Championship countless times and kept leaving it late to retain top-flight status.
In 2013-14, though, it seemed that the North East side were destined for the drop after a horrific start to the season. The Black Cats lost seven of their first eight games, and drew the other.
This resulted in the sacking of Paolo di Canio, who was later replaced by Gus Poyet in October. When Sunderland lost 5-1 to Tottenham Hotspur in April, they were favourites with bookies to be relegated.
The result, coupled with the fact that Poyet’s charges still had to face top of the table Manchester City along with Manchester United and Chelsea, meant that Sunderland’s chances were extremely slim.
In a major shock, Sunderland managed to draw 2-2 with City at the Etihad Stadium. This result gave the team some newfound belief, and provided a springboard to gain momentum.
They went on to win the last four games against Chelsea, Cardiff City, Manchester United and West Bromwich Albion. After this great escape, Poyet’s side ended the season in 14th place.
This was a remarkable and unexpected turn of events that will live long in the memory of the Stadium of Light club’s supporters.
Eintracht Frankfurt (1998/99)
The 1998-99 Bundesliga followed a familiar pattern at the top of the table, with Bayern Munich dominating the division and eventually winning with a 15-point lead over second-placed Bayern Leverkusen.
Bayern tend to be out-and-out favourites in the football betting to win the league each season, so there were no surprises there. The Bavarians claimed their 15th German top-flight title in that campaign, and had the league sewn up after the 31st round of games.
But while there was fairly standard business occurring at the top of the table, there was an almighty scrap for survival going on at the bottom – making the use of a bet calculator essential for those invested in the relegation markets.
The 1998-99 season is well-remembered for the intense action of the final day of the campaign. Borussia Monchengladbach and VfL Bochum were already relegated before the 34th round of fixtures.
But there were an astonishing five teams who needed a win to avoid joining them in the second tier. All the games kicked off at the same time and at half time, Frankfurt appeared to be the team doomed for the drop.
However, the Eagles managed to turn things around emphatically after the break, and ended up beating 1. FC Kaiserslautern 5-1 to secure a 15th-place finish with 37 points.
This was an impressive win, as the Red Devils were vying for a fourth-place finish. Frankfurt’s survival meant that it was Nurnberg who took the final relegation place after losing 2-1 against SC Freiburg.
Crotone (2016/17)
Since their inception in 1945, Crotone have only ever spent two seasons at the pinnacle of Italian football. The fairly unknown small city on the Italian south coast broke into Serie A for the 2016-17 campaign, and became the talk of the footballing world for a short time.
The Pythagoreans are back fighting in Serie B today, but they will always have the memory of their stunning escape act in their first season in the top flight.
At start of that campaign, the newly appointed manager Davide Nicola vowed that if his team managed to stay up he would cycle 1300 kilometres from Crotone to Turin.
This statement highlighted just how much faith the now-Udinese boss had in his charges at the time.
Everyone knew it was going to take a miracle for the tiny club to cut it against the likes of Juventus, Napoli, and the Milan clubs, and Crotone started the season as the bookies’ favourites to go straight back down.
Indeed, it was certainly looking that way when the south coast side only managed to accrue nine points in the whole of the first half of the season.
After the 29th round of Serie A fixtures that term, Crotone had won three matches and drawn five. Nearly all hope was gone. But remarkably, in a final, epic push to stay in the top flight, the minnows rallied.
They won six of the last nine games, including victories against Inter Milan and Lazio. This superb end of season form meant that Crotone secured 17th place on 34 points and condemned Empoli to relegation.
The manager stayed true to his word as well, and celebrated the victory with the enduring bike ride back to his hometown.
These are just a few of the fairytale football stories to have happened over the years, and the pages of the history books still have room for many more.
The English top flight is one of the best places to look towards for intense and unpredictable relegation scraps, and there have been many stunning acts of escapism in the past.
Indeed, if Neil Warnock’s Cardiff City manage to avoid the drop this time out, people will be talking about it for many years to come, especially after the tragedy they faced in January.
Can the Bluebirds pull themselves out of the mire or will they be back in the Championship next term?
