The 1999–2000 season was the 120th season of competitive football in England.
Overview
Premier League Manchester United were crowned FA Premier League champions with an 18-point margin over runners-up Arsenal and with just 3 league defeats all season. This was despite their failure to retain the European Cup and withdrawal from the FA Cup in order to compete in the FIFA Club World Championship – a campaign which was short lived. Andy Townsend also once said in The Sun that Manchester United should be "banned for life" from the FA Cup. Their season after the domination of 1998–99 was seen as a relative failure by the tabloids. Man United's failure in the FIFA Club World Championship, was surprisingly compounded by the press even more when David Beckham's wife Victoria, admitted on The Big Breakfast that he enjoys wearing her thongs. It was during this tournament he was sent off against Mexican team Club Necaxa, which was seen as the starting point in his team's first-round exit.
Sunderland made an impressive Premiership comeback by finishing seventh and just missing out on a UEFA Cup place, in part due to 30 goals from prolific striker Kevin Phillips.
Watford went down in bottom place with a record Premiership low of 24 points. Sheffield Wednesday were next to go down. On the last day of the season, Wimbledon lost 2–0 at Southampton and Bradford City achieved a shock 1–0 home win over Liverpool thanks to a goal by David Wetherall. This meant that Bradford had survived the drop and Liverpool had surrendered a UEFA Champions League place to Leeds United. It also meant that Wimbledon's 14-year spell in the top flight was over and they were relegated to Division One 12 years to the day that they had beaten Liverpool to achieve a shock FA Cup triumph.
Division One The three promotion places in Division One went to league champions Charlton Athletic, runners-up Manchester City and playoff champions Ipswich Town.
1999–2000 also saw some of Division One's biggest clubs miss out on promotion—the biggest of these were Blackburn Rovers (11th) and Nottingham Forest (14th). Steve Coppell ended his fourth spell as Crystal Palace manager after doing wonders to keep a virtually bankrupt club clear of the Division One relegation zone.
Going down were Walsall, Port Vale and Swindon Town. West Bromwich Albion just missed out on the drop zone thanks to a late turn-around in form during the final weeks of the season which followed the appointment of Gary Megson as manager.
Division Two David Moyes, 37, showed promise as one of the league's most highly rated young managers after he guided Preston North End to the Division Two championship. Stan Ternent's two-year rebuilding project at Burnley paid off as they finished runners-up in the division. Joining them in Division One were Peter Taylor's Gillingham, who had reached the upper half of the league for the first time in their history.
Going down were Cardiff City, Blackpool, Scunthorpe United and Chesterfield. Narrowly avoiding the drop were Oxford United, who struggled all season long despite the club's financial crisis being eased by the arrival of new Tanzanian chairman Firoz Kassam.
Division Three Swansea City, Rotherham United, Northampton Town and Peterborough United occupied the four promotion places in Division Three.
Chester City were relegated on the last day of the season, ending their 69-year league career, while Shrewsbury Town and Carlisle United saved themselves from Conference football.
FA Cup Chelsea beat Aston Villa 1–0 in the last FA Cup final at Wembley before its redevelopment. The competition was played despite the absence of holders Manchester United due to FIFA Club World Championship commitments. Their absence meant that in the 3rd round of the competition, there was an uneven number of teams, and so Darlington were picked out of a hat of "lucky losers" and played against Aston Villa despite having lost in the 2nd round of the competition. Villa beat them 2–1.
In a one-off season, most FA Cup rounds were played a few weeks earlier than their traditional dates. For example, the first round was played in late October (rather than mid-November) and the third round was held on the second Saturday in December (instead of its annual place at the start of the new year). The experiment has not been repeated since.
League Cup Leicester City beat Tranmere Rovers 2–1 to yield their second League Cup in four seasons.
Events
United retain their title
Manchester United retained their Premiership title after losing just three league games all season and finishing 18 points ahead of runners-up Arsenal. Roy Keane was voted Player of the Year by both the PFA and FWA and Dwight Yorke finished as the club's top scorer with 20 Premiership goals. United lost their defence of the European Cup after losing to eventual winners Real Madrid in the quarter-finals. Along the way they suffered an embarrassing 5–0 domestic loss to Chelsea, the biggest ever defeat for a British team defending the European Cup.
Chelsea triumph in Wembley finale
Chelsea beat Aston Villa 1–0 in the last FA Cup final at Wembley before the stadium was closed for reconstruction. Robert di Matteo, who had scored in the 1997 final, scored the only goal of the 2000 final to give Chelsea their third FA Cup triumph and end Villa's hopes of winning the trophy for the first time since 1957.
O'Neill lured to Celtic
Martin O'Neill guided Leicester City to their second League Cup triumph in four seasons before moving north of the border to Celtic, whose 'dream team' partnership of Director of Football Kenny Dalglish and Head Coach John Barnes had ended a nightmare as they finished 21 points behind champions Rangers in the SPL title race and had suffered a shock SFA Cup exit at the hands of Inverness Caledonian Thistle, which had inspired The Sun newspaper headline: "Super Caley Go Ballistic, Celtic Are Atrocious".
England blow it at Euro 2000
England overcame Scotland in the qualification playoffs to qualify for Euro 2000, and beat Germany in the group stages. But they surrendered a two-goal lead to lose 3–2 to Portugal and lost by the same scoreline to Romania, and thus failed to reach the quarter-finals. This dismal showing saw continued calls for the F.A. to terminate Kevin Keegan's contract.
Veteran Robson takes over on Tyneside
Bobby Robson, 66, became the oldest manager ever to take charge of a Premiership club when he succeeded 37-year-old Ruud Gullit as manager of Newcastle United.
Chester out, Kidderminster in
Chester City were relegated to the Conference after 69 years of Football League membership. They were replaced by Conference champions Kidderminster Harriers, who had won the Conference title six years earlier but had been refused promotion because their Aggborough ground did not meet capacity requirements.
Coppell quits Palace again
Steve Coppell was sacked as Crystal Palace manager, having been in charge of the club four times in 16 years. New owner Simon Jordan brought in Alan Smith (who had managed Palace between 1993 and 1995) as Coppell's successor. The change of hands gave Palace fans hope for the future after a financial crisis had almost put the club out of business.
Shearer quits the international stage
Alan Shearer retired from international football after playing for England at Euro 2000, much to the dismay of many fans who felt that he still had a few years left in him at the highest level.
Wimbledon relegated after 14 years
Wimbledon were relegated from the Premiership after 14 years in the top flight. Their fate was sealed on 14 May, 12 years to the day since they had achieved their famous FA Cup victory over Liverpool.
Awards Roy Keane captained Manchester United to another Premiership title triumph and was credited with the PFA Players' Player of the Year and FWA Footballer of the Year awards.
Leeds United's 22-year-old Australian midfielder Harry Kewell was voted PFA Young Player of the Year after helping to secure a Champions League place for his side.
Kevin Phillips scored 30 Premiership goals for Sunderland to win the Premier League Golden Boot and making him the season's highest scorer among all four English professional divisions.
Successful managers Sir Alex Ferguson guided Manchester United to their sixth Premiership title in eight years.
Gianluca Vialli won his fourth major trophy in two-and-a-half seasons by winning the FA Cup for Chelsea.
David O'Leary ended his first full season as Leeds United manager with a run to the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup and qualification for next season's Champions League.
Peter Reid achieved a remarkable seventh-place finish for Sunderland in their Premiership comeback season.
Martin O'Neill ended his spell at Leicester City by achieving the Foxes' highest ever Premier League finish and by winning a second League Cup in four seasons.
Joe Royle took Manchester City into the Premiership after winning a second successive promotion.
Alan Curbishley guided Charlton Athletic to promotion back to the Premiership at the first attempt after they finished champions of Division One.
George Burley finally got Ipswich Town into the Premiership when they triumphed in the Division One playoffs after three successive seasons of failure.
David Moyes continued Preston North End's revival by guiding them to title success in Division Two.
Stan Ternent guided Burnley to runners-up spot in Division Two and secured their promotion to Division One.
John Hollins brought success to Swansea City, who won the Division Three title.
League tables
FA Premier League
Manchester United retained the Premier League title, winning it for the sixth time in eight seasons, and finished the season as champions by a record 18-point margin; while their season was marred by faltering results in the early stages, a struggle to replace long-serving goalkeeper Peter Schmeichel, and their controversially withdrawing from the FA Cup in favour of an ultimately fruitless entry into the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship, they made up for this in style by winning all but three games (only one of which ended in defeat) after Christmas.
Arsenal finished runners-up for the second successive season, having spent much of the season well off the pace of the Champions League spots before a strong run in the late stages saw them clinch second place. Leeds United's season was essentially the opposite of those of the two teams above them, leading the table for much of the first half of the season, only for their form to completely implode in the final months, with only Liverpool's failure to win on the final day securing them a Champions League spot; their third-place finish was nonetheless their highest since title glory in 1992.
Liverpool's fourth-place finish meant that they had to settle for a UEFA Cup place, a shock defeat to Bradford City (who defied all the odds to avoid relegation in their first top-flight season for nearly 80 years) preventing them from qualifying for the Champions League on the final day. Joining Liverpool in the UEFA Cup were fifth placed FA Cup Winners Chelsea, and League Cup winners Leicester City. Newly promoted Sunderland just missed out on Europe, with a winless run from Boxing Day to mid-March ending their hopes, but their seventh-place finish was their highest for decades, and star striker Kevin Phillips bagged both the Golden Boot and the European Golden shoe, scoring 30 goals.
Ruud Gullit stepped down as Newcastle manager after one point from the first five games of the league campaign, paving the way for 66-year-old former England manager Bobby Robson to take up his first post in England since leaving the England job in 1990, and his first at club level since 1982. Robson steered Newcastle to an 11th-place finish and they also reached the FA Cup semi-finals.