At this very time 50 years ago, the same destination was the aim of teams scrambling to qualify for the 1974 FIFA World Cup finals.

East Germany, Haiti, Zaire and Australia all qualified for the finals for the first time.

Yet many will consider the most dramatic episode came at Wembley Stadium in London, where Poland emerged from trial by fire to draw 1-1, eliminate England and ensure they would be represented at the final stages for the first time since 1938.

The match is also indelibly linked with Brian Clough, one of the most successful football managers of the era, because he dubbed Poland's goalkeeper Jan Tomaszewski a "clown".

With his assistant Peter Taylor, Clough had led Derby County from obscurity to the Football League Championship in 1972.

 It was a remarkable achievement and as Clough said at the time, a triumph for the "little people."

Clough was articulate and outspoken, so  in 1973 television companies were queuing up to use him.

They even persuaded world heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, not known for his reticence on screen, to send Clough a video message.

"I’m Muhammad Ali, the world knows who I am, they know I’m confident and they know I talk," Ali began.

"There’s some fellow in England named Brian Clough, some soccer player or something, I heard all the way in America that this fellow talks too much, they say he’s another Muhammad Ali,

"There’s just one Muhammad Ali, whoever you are, you don’t take my job, I’m the talker. Clough I’ve had enough!”

Watching in the studio, a grinning Clough responded by telling viewers, "I want to fight him."

UEFA Qualifying Group five for the 1974 FIFA World Cup was made up of England, Poland and Wales, but the early matches gave little indication of the drama which was to follow.

In November 1972, England began with a 1-0 win over Wales followed by a 1-1 draw in the return fixture.

The threat of Poland was largely discounted by many when they lost 2-0 to Wales in their opening fixture of the campaign.

For their match against England, scheduled for June 1973, Polish officials switched to the  Śląski Stadium in Chorzow in the Silesian mining area of Katowice.

The match was screened in the United Kingdom by BBC Television who had invited Clough to be part of their studio panel in London.

Poland’s line up was largely based on the squad which had won the Olympic football gold medal at Munich in 1972.

"The Poles are amateurs, they’re not amateurs in the accepted sense of the word but they did play in the Olympic Games," Clough told viewers.

"They played like amateurs on occasions there,I feel they’ll play like amateurs on occasions tonight, I don’t think they would grace the finals of the World Cup, I feel we will,"

It was said that there had been 600,000 applications for tickets and although the official capacity of the Stadium was then 105,000, many more had apparently been sold.

"Despite the hundred and odd thousand they will have there we will absolutely teach them in every department of the game tonight," Clough assured the television audience.

In fact it was Poland who won 2-0 and England even had Alan Ball, a member of its 1966 World Cup winning team, sent off in a tempestuous match.

Poland later defeated Wales 3-0 which meant that they required only a draw at Wembley to qualify, whilst England needed to win.

England were still managed by Sir Alf Ramsey who had been in charge of the successful World Cup campaign seven years earlier.

Sir Alf's approach had usually favoured pragmatism over flair, but by 1973 a run of more disappointing results had some of The Football Association's (The FA) elder statesmen sharpening the knives.

"Sir Alf is a man who has not made friends easily in his ten years as England manager," our much missed insidethegames columnist Alan Hubbard wrote at the time in Sportsworld magazine.

"He could do with some now."

Shortly before the crucial World Cup encounter with Poland, England defeated Austria 7-0 with a performance every bit as heartening as the scoreline suggested.

Poland, meanwhile, drew 1-1 in The Netherlands.

The television rights for the vital World Cup match had been secured by Independent Television (ITV) an organisation with whom Clough had now signed as a pundit.

Clough made his "clown" comment about Tomaszewski  in a programme previewing the match.

"What manager would have him in his team?" he asked.

His longtime assistant Taylor added that Poland were a team of "donkeys".

Fellow panellist Derek Dougan, a former Northern Ireland striker told Clough it was "a very adverse comment."

Dougan was later critical of Clough's comments in his own newspaper column and insisted, "It was clownish to call him a clown."

Clough was still manager of Derby County but club chairman Sam Longson became concerned that he was spending too much time on television and had missed club commitments as a result.

"The day you’ll stop him talking you’ll lose him, its one of his strengths," Taylor told reporters.

Longson was also concerned that Clough had insulted The FA during some of his broadcasts. 

"His television appearances and some of his newspaper articles have not done Derby County any good," Longson admitted.

Incredibly, in the days before the vital World Cup qualifier, Clough began to dominate the headlines when it was disclosed that he had resigned as Derby manager.

"It is with a certain amount of sadness that the Board of Directors have accepted the resignation of the manager and assistant manager," Longson announced.

Although the Derby players signed a letter calling for Clough’s reinstatement and legal action was threatened, Clough never did return to the club.

By the end of the decade, his partnership with Taylor had even eclipsed his Derby achievements as he guided Nottingham Forest to the League Championship and two European Cups.

But on October 17 in 1973, the the day of the England versus Poland match, Clough was effectively  unemployed in football but took his place in ITV’s Wembley studio for the match.

England began the match in attacking fashion and rarely relented.

In an early exchange with England striker Allan Clarke, Tomaszewski sustained a broken bones in his hand.

Even so, over the next 45 minutes, Tomaszewski and his team mates contrived to block every shot and header.

Half time came with the score still 0-0.

"Put your feet up and enjoy it," Clough told viewers, "The goals will come."

The first goal did come in the second-half. It was scored by Poland.

In a rare breakaway, England defender Norman Hunter missed a critical tackle and Jan Domarski shot under the body of goalkeeper Peter Shilton.

England surged forward desperately in search of an equaliser which came six minutes later when Clarke converted a penalty,

In the minutes that remained, Poland repelled every attack by the home team.

Substitute Kevin Hector, by coincidence a member of the Derby team built by Clough, saw his attempt cleared off the line in the last few moments.

Even this was not the final attempt of the night, but the Polish players were soon cavorting across the field in celebration.

"Clough trod on my honour," Tomaszewski admitted later. "What he said gave me extra verve and energy."

Northern Ireland keeper Pat Jennings told the Daily Mirror, "I have never seen a bloke play so badly and so greatly in one match."

England's 1966 World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore conceded after the match, "He might be a clown but even clowns can perform." 

At the World Cup in 1974, Tomaszewski even saved two penalties in the second round against Sweden and West Germany as the Poles proved eminently worthy of their place.

It took a late goal from West Germany's deadly striker Gerd Müller to end their dream of the final and Poland eventually finished in third place.

After his career finished, Tomaszewski himself became an outspoken commentator notorious for criticising the Polish Football Association.

Clough died in 2004 at the age of 69 due to stomach cancer. 

He is often referred to as, "the greatest manager England never had."