MATCH OF THE DAY – 20 Football Matches That Were Well Worth Seeing

[email protected] August 7, 2019

One Christmas Day afternoon some years ago and in an advanced state of festive refreshment, a good friend and I engaged in a conversation of which the theme was: ‘Three rock concerts you would like to have seen.’

In the end I settled on The Beatles at The Cavern, The Band (anywhere) and the night at the London Lyceum when Bob Marley and The Wailers recorded ‘Live‘ (which still leaves the 1973 ‘retirement’ gig of Ziggy Stardust, Joni Mitchell and Gram Parsons as surely the basis for a future post).

Almost as an after-thought I threw in the show everybody wishes they had seen – a live performance by Elvis Presley the stuff of dreams, until my friend weighed in with: ‘I’ve seen him.’

‘But Elvis never played a show outside North America?’

‘Saw him in Vegas in 1973 – I was working over there.’

This conversation came to mind recently when an old mate revealed he had been at the 1966 World Cup Final. Rushing back into central London to start work at six o’clock, he told a woman during the train journey to Marylebone that Geoff Hurst had scored twice and England won 3-2.

The equivalent of leaving an Elvis gig just before he encored with ‘Suspicious Minds,’ back on Christmas Day whenever, the notion then arose of which football matches from history we would like to have seen.

Limiting it to three was futile, but when my list grew closer to 53 clearly some judicious editing was required. For me, the matches holding the most fascination are mainly those shaped by descriptions from people who were there rather than mass media accounts – and by the same token, grainy black and white footage opposed to multi-angle technicolor.

There are, of course, exceptions and as the decades passed so coverage of football increased, but there was an era when to talk with any authority about a match you had to have seen it – being there the only sure way to see the game.

Hence memories can become muddled or play tricks, exaggerations take hold, legends are created or collapse. Yet hearing accounts of great football matches from long ago is a joyous experience, which is why the score of games selected for my ‘roaring twenty‘ are from a time often before I was born and whose reputation is cast if not in stone, then in the way my imagination perceives them.

Being able to time travel and see just how good the Wembley Wizards, Dixie Dean, the ’53 Hungarians and Stanley Matthews were, forms the whole crux of this piece – which is why my choices exclude matches involving magnificent club sides such as Leeds United in the 60s and 70s, Nottingham Forest (77-80), Liverpool in the 70s and 80s, Arsenal and Manchester United as the Millennium dawned.

Firsthand, I witnessed how formidable they all were, their major triumphs ingrained on our collective memories.

But it is the mystique evoked by the distant past that stirs my soul. As for these selections some look obvious, others chosen on a close to home basis and one for purely sentimental reasons (God bless you Frank).

So through the mists of time come a score of fabulous fixtures – fantasy football you might say……….

20. WEST BROMWICH ALBION 3 PRESTON NORTH END 2 – 1954 FA Cup Final: In a five-goal thriller, where the lead swung back and forth, Albion finally secured victory with a goal three minutes from time scored by winger Frank Griffin. Many years later Frank became an acquaintance and seeing this friendly, affable man score his cup-winning goal would have been a pleasure.

19. ENGLAND 1 SCOTLAND 5 – 1928 Home International Fixture: On March 28, 1928, the ‘Wee Blue Devils’ led England a merry rain dance at a sodden Wembley. As they reigned supreme, the famous five of Alex Jackson, James Dunn, Hughie Gallagher, Alex James and Alan Morton etched their names forever in Scottish football folklore.

18. BENFICA 1 MANCHESTER UNITED 4 – 1968 European Cup Final: More Wembley-wizardry only this time from the incomparable George Best. His goal alone was worth being present for – Euesbio and Bobby Charlton also elevating the match to world class status.

17. ENGLAND 9 SCOTLAND 3 – 1961 Home International Fixture: With Jimmy Greaves and Johnny Haynes in imperious form England gain revenge for 1928 – their Wembley wonders almost running out of fingers and thumbs to keep count of the score.

16. WALSALL 2 ARSENAL 0 – 1933 FA Cup third round: An FA Cup upset of monumental proportion; this was not only the most acclaimed team in the land coming unstuck against (much) lower ranked opposition.

The result resonated as a shock football score, but in the turbulent inter-war years seen as victory for the hard-up industrial heartland over the affluent south. Arsenal duly recovered to win the first of three successive league titles…….

15. EVERTON 4 BLACKBURN ROVERS 1 – April 6 1928: Taking a time machine to see a goal machine. The incredible goal-scoring feats of William ‘Dixie’ Dean were already shooting Everton toward the league title when almost 50,000 crammed into Goodison Park for the Good Friday visit of FA Cup finalists Blackburn. Dean scored his 45th & 46th of the season – 13 goals in the remaining six matches taking his tally to the legendary 60.

14. BLACKPOOL 4 BOLTON WANDERERS 3 – 1953 FA Cup Final: After losing in the 1948 and 1951 finals, Blackpool finally lift the trophy – this seven-goal epic normally associated with Sir Stanley Matthews, despite team-mate Stan Mortensen scoring the first hat-trick of a Wembley FA Cup Final.

13. WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 0 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 4 – October 1 1960: At the dawn of a new decade, Spurs lift club football in England onto its highest plateau yet. The eleventh straight league win at the start of their ‘double’ season of 1960-61 coming at Molineux – Wolves, the dominant power of the late-fifties, swept aside by the coming force.

12. CELTIC 2 INTERNAZIOALE 1 – 1967 European Cup Final: Brilliant, eye-catching, richly-deserved – and that is just the second half equaliser from Celtic full-back Tommy Gemmill. When Steve Chalmers steered home the winner with six minutes left, immortality beckoned for the ‘Lisbon Lions’ – the victory a triumph for ambition over attrition.

11. ENGLAND 2 SCOTLAND 3 – 1967 Home International Fixture: 1967 and yet more Scottish glory as England are toppled for the first time since becoming World Champions the previous year.

Should Scotland have won by a bigger margin? Should England have snatched a draw despite finishing with only eight fit outfield players?

Has there ever been a better moment in the history of England v Scotland fixtures than Gordon Banks making a miraculous save to thwart an audacious lob that only Denis Law was capable of?

10. AUSTRIA 2 ENGLAND 3 – 1952 International Fixture: In front of thousands of British servicemen stationed in Vienna, England produced one of their finest performances of that or any era. The highly regarded Austrian team were unable to contain the power of Nat Lofthouse, whose bravery in scoring his two goals made him forever known as ‘The Lion of Vienna.’

9. REAL MADRID 7 EINTRACT FRANKFURT 3 – 1960 European Cup Final: The greatest club performance ever seen in the British Isles? Boasting such talent as Di Stefano, Puskas and Gento, this magnificent Madrid team treated Hampden Park to a fiesta of football in winning the European Cup for the fifth time in a row.

8. ARGENTINA 2 ENGLAND 1 – 1986 World Cup quarter-final: An Argentinian writer recently described the two Diego Maradona goals that decided the contest as ‘the most vile and the most beautiful of all time‘. To witness the greatest footballer in the world would have been a privilege, which at the time, hands down so to speak, Maradona clearly was.

7. MANCHESTER UNITED v WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS – Saturday 8 February 1958: Sadly this was a match nobody saw due to the tragic events on the runway of Munich Airport just forty-eight hours before. The two top teams in England, first and second in the title race were all set for a late winter show down. Had that awful plane crash not occurred, young lives would have been spared, the course of football history completely different.

6. WOLVERHAMPTON WANDERERS 3 HONVED 2 – December 13 1954: Outclassed twice by a world class Hungarian team in the previous twelve months, England managed revenge of sorts when the crack Honved side – containing seven of the national team – arrived at Molineux. Leading 2-0 at half-time, this club version of the ‘Mighty Magyars’ found the English champions in no mood to yield. On nights of a full moon in Wolverhampton, it is claimed the roar acclaiming the winning goal by Roy Swinbourne can still be heard.

5. ENGLAND 3 HUNGARY 6 – 1953 International Fixture: 1953 had been going along so nicely as well; the Coronation, Stanley Matthews finally winning an FA Cup winners medal, Everest climbed – only for England to go hurtling down the football hillside as all pre-conceived notions are torn apart.

Hammered at the hands of the Hungarians – it was their fast feet, quick minds and innovative inter-play England had no answer to.

4. HOLLAND 4 ARGENTINA 0 – 1974 World Cup group game: Total football brings total enthrallment – with even an impressionable youth able to see this was football not just from the continent, but another planet.

If it was down to artistry these Dutch masters would have been World Champions in 1974 – this victory on route to a final defeat against West Germany a high-point in footballing finesse. The breath-taking talents of Krol, Cruyff, Neeskens and Rep turned me into a student of the game. I remain in their debt.

3. ENGLAND 0 BRAZIL 1 – 1970 World Cup group game: Guadalajara June 7 1970 – Have so many world class footballers ever been assembled on one pitch? Oh to have marveled firsthand at Pele, Moore, Gerson, Banks and Jairzinho in their prime. Sublime moments of defence, attack and goalkeeping are rightly remembered when the very best in football is discussed.

2. ENGLAND 4 WEST GERMANY 2 – 1966 World Cup Final: Having watched the game numerous times and read every word appertaining, it is a personal take that most resonates. Some years ago, a Scottish Liverpool-supporting friend revealed he had been present on July 30 1966. ‘But Ken,’ I said, ‘you can’t stand England.’ From over his glass, he replied: ‘I loved Roger Hunt that much, I’d even watch him playing for England.’ With a faraway look he then added: ‘Aye – and that Bobby Moore could play as well.’

1. BRAZIL 4 ITALY 1 – 1970 World Cup Final: If the epithet ‘team of all talents‘ was copy-writed it would surely be owned by the Brazil World Cup winning side of 1970. Masterful individuals who played with an off-the-cuff flamboyance, they set standards still aspired to, but never surpassed.

Not even Wolves second-half demolition of the Arsenal double-winning team in November 1971 comes close – these brilliant Brazilians even more extraordinary than that.

There – after forty-eight years I have finally admitted it.

This article was first published on 7/8/2019.

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This article was first published on 7/8/2019.