By the time the FA Cup semi-finals of 1974-75 came around it was evident the season had entered territory unlike any other during the course of the decade.
The race for the league title, even at this late stage, was open to a field so widespread any one of eight clubs could claim to be in the hunt. The possibility of the title heading to Portman Road, Victoria Ground, Ayresome Park or Bramall Lane remained a feasible outcome of a chase where nobody could establish themselves as definitive leaders – and if they did hit the front were more likely to lose momentum than pull away.
With Liverpool, in the first season of Bob Paisley being at the helm, unable to muster the consistency required of champions (although it would not be long in coming), the door was open for any of a congested pack to make a move, providing they could hold their nerve through three or four consecutive Saturday’s – with only present leaders Ipswich Town (ahead of Everton and Derby County on goal average) of the hopeful contingent, having the extra-curricular activity of an FA Cup semi-final.
Indeed, the quartet left contesting the FA Cup reflected the curious course the proceeding eight months had taken. If 1973-74, with Leeds winning the title and Liverpool lifting the FA Cup had been the ’70s season waiting to happen since the decade began, events since had been anything but expected.
In the summer of 1974 both clubs had been forced into making a change of manager, Bill Shankly heading into retirement after calling time on his near 15-year Anfield tenure, Don Revie meanwhile departed the league champions after 13 momentous years to take charge of the England team. His Elland Road exit precipitated the brief, baffling reign of Brian Clough, although following his tempestuous exit former England captain Jimmy Armfield had steadied things to the extent Leeds were shortly about to embark on two-leg European Cup semi-final set-to with Barcelona.
In contrast to the four FA Cup semi-finalists of 12 months prior, the 1975 combatants were a strangely disparate collection. The year before a crew of Liverpool, Leicester City, Burnley and Newcastle United found themselves at the penultimate stage of the competition, each of whom had contested at least one FA Cup Final in the previous twenty years. Yet of those now a step from Wembley only one had previously won the cup, with two of the number having never gone so far as the final.
But for all the relative inexperience in regard to last four involvement, there was still no shortage of ironies and omens attached to the two fixtures, no 1970s FA Cup campaign complete without such.
While an unfortunate portent for the St Andrew’s club, first division stragglers Birmingham City were returning to the site of their defeat against Leeds three years earlier. But they and mid-table second division opponents Fulham had the incentive that three of the past four FA Cup winners had contested a Hillsborough semi-final, Leeds being one after ousting Birmingham in 1972.
Given the FA Cup tendency for things to be cyclical, the FA Cup winners of ten years before, Liverpool, had won through to Wembley at Villa Park, the venue where Ipswich and West Ham United would be crossing swords. But through English football at large, breath was bated at a potential irony involving the two remaining London clubs.
When West Ham had previously won the FA Cup in 1964 they had been captained by Bobby Moore, the first of three visits in consecutive seasons to the Royal Box – Moore leading his Hammers team-mates up the steps to collect the European Cup Winners’ Cup in May 1965, making the same climb at the head of the England World Cup winning team fourteen months later.
But a sixteen-year Upton Park career consisting of 544 first team appearances had ended in March 1974 when 32 year-old Moore crossed the capital to join Fulham for a fee of £25,000. But just a year later his current team had avoided Moore’s previous one of long-standing in the FA Cup semi-draw, creating the prospect of the most revered defender of his generation making one last Wembley appearance in a cup final against the club with whom he was most identified.
The FA Challenge Cup Committee had played their part when making the semi-final draw in keeping Fulham and West Ham apart but for all four, none of whom had been exactly flush with honours in recent times, the FA Cup represented a Holy Grail.
Appropriate then, the Monty Python cast should reference one in the title of new their big screen release – a film that opened in U.K. cinemas 48 hours before FA Cup semi-finals that were almost its equal in terms of convoluted plot and moments of farce…………
The FA Cup Semi-Finals of 1974-75 – Saturday 5 April 1975:
FULHAM 1 BIRMINGHAM CITY 1 (Hillsborough – 54,166):
With all due respect to the participants and their followers, without one of the perennial, semi-final big lads to attract the limelight, there is a strange sense both games are played out in the shadow of more newsworthy sporting events, football and otherwise, taking place elsewhere.
At Hillsborough, Birmingham, sixth-bottom of Division One, were rated favourites in their meeting with Fulham, who at least had recent form in their favour, having lost only once in their last 17 matches, although a surfeit of draws had prevented them making a concerted promotion bid.
That said, they arrived in Sheffield on the back of a notable Easter Monday win at Carrow Road five days earlier, defeating a Norwich side would be promoted come the end of the season.
Rival captains Alan Mullery (the Fulham skipper soon to be named ‘Footballer of the Year‘ in providing 1974-75 with another strange twist) and Howard Kendall, both had ’60s FA Cup Final experiences to reflect upon. Mullery had been a winner with Spurs in 1967, while Kendall was a member of the beaten Everton side of 1968 and four years prior to that a teenage Preston player when they lost the 1964 final, the 17 year-old midfielder the youngest player (to date) to play in the FA Cup Final.
Clad in the red and black striped AC Milan-styled shirts they had worn in winning away ties at first division opposition Everton and Carlisle in the previous two rounds, Fulham started brightly on their visit to Hillsborough, a venue where they had lost a second division fixture in the autumn – much of their enterprising play stemming from the contributions of wide men Les Barrett and Jimmy Conway.
With Birmingham offering little in the way of attacking threat, the Craven Cottage side enjoy a significant amount of possession and play with greater purpose, their efforts rewarded with a goal five minutes after half-time. Following on from a brace in the win at Norwich that ensured his selection when boss Alec Stock came to selecting the team, striker John Mitchell broke the deadlock with a sweetly struck volley from eighteen yards.
Playing in the manner of a side waiting for the opposition to score before pulling their finger out, Birmingham respond almost immediately by creating their first opening, Scottish midfielder Alan Campbell firing wide from eight yards. But on carving out a second Freddie Goodwin’s side drew level in the 57th minute, central defender Joe Gallagher turning the ball home on punishing slack marking that was more Awol than AC Milan.
After this seven minute flurry of activity the tie returned to a basic pattern of Fulham probing and Birmingham coping. Near misses from Viv Busby and John Lacey suggested it was the Londoners who were best equipped to find a winner, but a replay looked the most likely outcome long before it was confirmed by the final whistle.
WEST HAM UNITED 0 IPSWICH TOWN 0 (Villa Park – 58,000):
West of Hillsborough and north of Villa Park, at Aintree 13/2 second favourite L’Escargot was denying Red Rum a third consecutive victory in the Grand National – Ipswich and West Ham creating no such excitement in their semi-final showdown.
On a blustery Birmingham afternoon, the likelihood of a flowing game further reduced by a threadbare pitch showing a season worth of wear, Ipswich received a blow to their hopes when formidable defender and England international in-waiting Kevin Beattie (his first cap nine days away), limped out of the contest after 20 minutes.
Through a match where neither side did themselves justice, the effects of a relentless fixture programme caught up with two tired teams. In their fifth match in nine days, Ipswich, who played three league games over Easter the previous weekend, generally held sway without giving West Ham too many anxious moments, The Hammers, whose poor league form was reflected in two wins from the last 14 matches, content to regroup for another day.
In normal circumstances, both FA Cup semi-finals going to replays for the first time since 1952 would fill the back pages of Sunday newspapers the following day.
Yet like the games themselves, this was reported as something as an afterthought amidst Grand National coverage – along with extensive accounts of a win for Manchester United at Southampton that ensured top flight football would be returning to Old Trafford following a one season second division sojourn.
REPLAYS: 9/4/1975: BIRMINGHAM CITY 0 FULHAM 1 aet (Maine Road, 35,205): IPSWICH TOWN 1 WEST HAM UNITED 2 (Stamford Bridge, 45,344):
When they resumed four days later, the ties now moving to different venues (perhaps in the hope alternative surroundings would produce better games), if there were to be definite outcomes, the winners still might find themselves with reduced column inches the following morning due to Leeds playing host to Barcelona in a European Cup semi-final, first-leg fixture.
Highlights of the fixture, rather than replayed FA Cup semi-finals, would be the centrepiece of the ‘Sportsnight‘ programme that evening, the BBC dispatching senior commentator David Coleman to Elland Road.
At Stamford Bridge, the portents pointed to another draw as both West Ham and Ipswich had shread the spoils on visiting SW6 for league games, host club Chelsea currently embroiled in a relegation struggle to which they would eventually succumb.
Having won at Arsenal in the quarter-finals, a return to London brought a much improved display from West Ham, rediscovering the application that made them genuine title contenders going into the festive period, rather than the great pretenders they had often appeared since the Christmas decorations came down.
In recent months boss John Lyall, promoted to the position at the start of the season (when long-serving Ron Greenwood took on the role of general-manager), had seen his charges save their better displays for the FA Cup. Yet before they provided something here approaching their true capabilities, West Ham received a let-off when a Bryan Hamilton goal was ruled out by a contentious offside call made by referee Clive Thomas.
Two years later he would deny the same player another FA Cup semi-final goal in even more controversial circumstances. By then the Northern Ireland international was in the Everton line-up for an all-Merseyside last-four clash against Liverpool – the Welsh official not a figure of endearment through Suffolk or the blue side of Stanley Park.
Notice that West Ham were moving up through the gears arrived on the half-hour when a superbly flighted cross from England man Trevor Brooking was headed home at the far post by young striker Alan Taylor – who had already paid back most of the £40,000 The Hammers had paid fourth division Rochdale for his services four months earlier by netting twice at Highbury in the previous round.
But if Ipswich were unlucky in having what appeared a legitimate goal disallowed, they received a stroke of good fortune in drawing level two minutes before half-time. There was no apparent danger attached to a corner from Town winger Mick Lambert, at least not before the attempted clearance of West Ham forward Billy Jennings sliced off his boot and into the net – this to the disbelief of those in a crowded penalty area and the terraces beyond.
Ipswich, who had already accounted for holders Liverpool and league champions Leeds, (the quarter-final against the Elland Road side finally settled at the fourth attempt), edged the second half at Stamford Bridge. But just when it appeared their FA Cup exertions would stretch to at least another half an hour, they were felled by a late strike from Taylor – his 83rd minute winner giving him a winning two-goal haul in successive rounds.
While Bobby Robson’s side would eventually finish third, UEFA Cup qualification secured with a 4-1 last-day Portman Road victory over The Hammers, it would be West Ham advancing on Wembley in reaching their first FA Cup Final in 11 years.
On returning to the dressing room, the celebrating West Ham players would have a short wait to discover who they would be facing on Saturday 3 May, the Birmingham v Fulham replay now into an additional 30 minutes after the previous 90 had failed to produce a goal.
To all intents and purposes it seemed they would be heading back to Upton Park with the opposition still be decided when things at Maine Road reached the 120th minute without resolution.
Yet when the Birmingham defence failed in clearing a cross from Alan Slough, it was Mitchell who seized upon the hesitancy, doing enough to steer the ball over the line as Fulham secured a place in the FA Cup Final for the first time in their history.
Thus the cup final would contain the romance the public in general were hoping for. Not since the mid-point of the previous decade had West Ham been to Wembley and nobody could find anything in Fulham to dislike, few figures in the game looked upon with more affection than elder-statesman manager Stock.
But above all, in three weeks time the great Bobby Moore was again destined to play on its green, green grass that he knew like home.
This eventuality created during an April week when Tom Jones (‘His 20 Greatest Hits’) was number one in the U.K. album charts…………….
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