Super Cup (English football)
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The Super Cup (known under its sponsored name as the ScreenSport Super Cup) was a one-off football competition held in England in the 1985-86 season. It was intended as a replacement for the European competitions from which English clubs had been banned following the Heysel Stadium disaster.
The six clubs invited, and the European competitions they would have qualified for, were:
- Everton (Football League champions, European Cup)
- Manchester United (FA Cup winners, Cup Winners' Cup)
- Norwich City (League Cup winners, UEFA Cup)
- Liverpool (UEFA Cup)
- Tottenham Hotspur (UEFA Cup)
- Southampton (UEFA Cup)
To generate a sufficient number of games, the teams played home and away in two groups of three, with the top four teams going through to the knockout stages. Liverpool and Everton won the semi-finals, but due to fixture congestion (the two clubs also contested that year's FA Cup Final), the Super Cup final was held over to September 1986. Liverpool finally won the trophy by a 7-2 aggregate score.
The competition was not a success, as it was felt to be an insufficient replacement for games against the best sides in Europe, and it has not been held since. Another similar competition launched the same season, the Full Members Cup, ran until 1992.