The fifth European Team Championship final was scheduled in the Netherlands but since the Dutch team failed to qualify England took responsibility for hosting the event. The Championship was held in Bath, a beautiful city of 85,000 inhabitants, lying some 100 miles' drive west of London, a place where Edgar, the first king of England, was crowned in 973 so the city celebrated the millenary of this ceremony at the time of the Championship.

A record number of 22 teams applied, of which one team (USSR) qualified by default as title holder and three teams withdrew without play. Two African teams, Tunisia and Morocco, were allowed to take part with FIDE's permission. As usual the preliminaries were very close and hard-fought. Switzerland eliminated Spain while England beat the weakened Netherlands' team in the only match scheduled in group 2 (Faroe Islands and Ireland withdrew) to throw the Dutchmen out. Poland surprisingly won group 3 ahead of East Germany and Denmark, to whom the Poles lost in the very beginning. Last round's horror Poland-GDR went on for a 4-4 draw which was a full success for Poland. West Germany outplayed Czechoslovakia surprisingly easily (e. g. Jansa and Přibyl lost both games each) and Romania beat Bulgaria.

Most teams sent their best squads to Bath with the exception of West Germany perhaps who were missing Hübner and Darga. USSR, Hungary and Yugoslavia were the big trio. West Germany and England were expected to run for 4th and 5th place while the rest of the teams were expected to fight for 6th. Round 1 saw something of a surprise as Poland beat West Germany 5-3. On the next day Yugoslavia beat Hungary, their silver medal contenders. The Soviets made a huge step towards the win on day four, when they easily defeated Yugoslavia. They retained the lead with 23 points, ahead of Hungary - 20 and Yugoslavia - 17. Poland were surprisingly lying in fourth. The hosts were quite disappointing as they were in 6th with just 12½ points. The Hungarians lost silver medal hopes in the penultimate round losing to Switzerland. In the last round they played very well but still not well enough to deny the Soviets and lost 5-3 while Yugoslavia easily wiped out Poland 6-2 to get the silver again. Poland achieved a lifetime success finishing in fourth, ahead of England and West Germany. Romania, after six consecutive losses, beat Switzerland to move into 7th and the Swiss came last - and the victory over Hungary was their only consolation.

The Soviets won four individual board prizes (only). Top scorer: Geller 4½/5. The Yugoslav engine was the top three (Gligorić, Ivkov, Ljubojević) who all won respective board prizes. Top players of the bronze-winning Hungarian team were stainless Portisch and Csom. Poland's sensational fourth was due mainly to Pytel and Sydor. Hartston of England played seven games at top board and drew all of them. Best players of Romanian and Swiss teams were Pavlov and Wirthensohn respectively.