ALAN JOHNSON remembers a competition that allowed some of England’s lower league clubs to pit their wits against the fancy foreigners

Notts County fans celebrate with Phil Turner

FIORENTINA vs Southend United. Sheffield United vs Udinese. Notts County vs Atalanta. It’s hard to imagine that cup games such as these occurred as recently as the midnineties. Step forward the Anglo-Italian Cup.
Founded in 1970, the now defunct competition was played intermittently until being abandoned in 1996 due to the increasing threat of crowd disturbances and the fact that the English and ...