While football followers of senior status could no doubt make a strong case for the 1960s (or 50s for that matter), to those of us fast approaching veteran stage, the 1970s, that decade from ‘Moondance‘ to Madness, will forever stand as the golden era of the FA Cup.
Our argument is based on a high proportion of memorable finals, not least the stunning exploits of Sunderland and Southampton in winning the cup from Division Two, quite apart from epic drama produced by the 1970 final and replay – FA Cup madness during this period relating to upsets of such seismic significance that (Ronnie) Radford and (Ricky) George, goalscorers for non-league Hereford United in their implausible 1972 third round victory over first division Newcastle, are as synonymous in FA Cup folklore as (John) Radford and (Charlie) George, who were cup winners with Arsenal the season before.
The astonishing feats of Hereford (1972), Colchester United (in defeating Leeds United the season before) and those of the surprise winners in 1973 (Sunderland) and 1976 (Southampton), are rightly revered. Each instance put the domestic football scene into a heightened state of shock-absorbing – the 1970s, on a yearly basis, conjuring a succession of remarkable FA Cup results that often-had ramifications way beyond young boys thinking their first transistor radios were defective when the results were read out.
While not quite having the giant-killing gravitas of what transpired on an afternoon that saw logic go missing at Layer Road or when the extraordinary came to pass at Edgar Street, the outcomes were still surprising and symbolic in their own way.
So, season by season, from ‘Let it Be‘ to ‘London Calling‘ hereby presented are ten tumultuous ties from the most dramatic decade in the history of the FA Cup……..
1969-70: WATFORD 1 LIVERPOOL 0 – Sixth Round (21/2/1970): To begin with a slight digression. While not warranting inclusion in the David slays Goliath category, a third-round replay loss for Spurs at newly promoted Division One rivals Crystal Palace had era-ending consequences.
On losing at Selhurst Park, Bill Nicholson decided changes were needed to a team without silverware since the year of ‘Sgt. Pepper‘ defeat in South London hastening the departure of goalscoring genius Jimmy Greaves – the 60s effectively ending at White Hart Lane when he moved to West Ham in a transfer that saw World Cup Winner Martin Peters move in the opposite direction.
The feeling of closure was even more pronounced at Anfield particularly when Bill Shankly saw his mid-60s stalwarts go out in the quarterfinals at second division Watford.
Without a trophy since winning the league title in 1965-66, in a season when they had suffered a humbling European Fairs Cup exit at the hands of Portuguese small fry Vitória de Setúbal, Liverpool succumbed to a second half header from Watford striker Barry Endean – the current season and 60s as a whole coming to an end on a heavy Hertfordshire pitch.
With a heavy heart Shankly disposed with several of his trusted trophy winners of yore, but vindication for his post Vicarage Road cull soon arrived – and when they reached the FA Cup Final 14 months later over half the side had been moved on.
Despite losing to Arsenal at Wembley in May 1971, the likes of Ray Clemence, Alec Lindsay, Larry Lloyd, Brian Hall and John Toshack would be around to collect winners’ medals when the league title was regained in 1972-1973, a campaign that also saw a UEFA Cup triumph acclaimed by the Kop.
1970-71: MIDDLESBROUGH 2 MANCHESTER UNITED 1 – Third Round replay (5/1/1971): If the accomplishments of premier rock power trio Cream were now the stuff of memory, by 1971 so were the exploits of that other 60s ‘supergroup’ of Charlton, Law and Best – Old Trafford moving from Sunny Afternoons to Rainy Days and Mondays at an alarming rate.
Such was the malaise on the red side of Manchester, the weeks preceding this third-round encounter had seen United play six league matches without winning. In the midst of such turbulence had also come a League Cup semi-final defeat against third division Aston Villa, an eventuality that brought the late-December dismissal of manager Wilf McGuiness – the office Christmas decorations still up at Old Trafford when Sir Matt Busby stepped back into the breach on a caretaker basis until the end of the season.
But not even the return of Busby could check the decline of a squad riven by dressing room factions, under-performing on a weekly basis and overly reliant on George Best.
Even so a third-round encounter against second division opposition should not have presented too much of an ordeal, the FA Cup offering opportunity to salvage something from a dispiriting campaign. Despite initially being held to a goalless draw, the odds were still in their favour on heading north for the replay, but at an Ayrseome Park packed to the rafters the visitors’ shortcomings all came to the fore – which is not to downplay a stirring ‘Boro performance who win through with goals from Hugh Mcllmoyle and Derrick Downing, a late strike from Best unable to alter the outcome.
While there was joy unconfined on Teesside, exasperation, not to mention dereliction of duty, prevailed at Old Trafford. In the days that followed, Best went AWOL, choosing to stay ensconced in the flat of actress Sinead Cusack rather than turn out with his team-mates in their subsequent fixture at Stamford Bridge – the first of several self-chosen absences that would precipitate the end of his Manchester United career.
1971-72: LEYTON ORIENT 3 CHELSEA 2 – Fifth Round (26/2/1972): Whether viewed as the end of the beginning or beginning of the end, being banjaxed at Brisbane Road was a bolt from blue Chelsea did not see coming.
Losing at second division Orient looked even further from the cards when 1970 FA Cup Final Replay scorers David Webb and Peter Osgood put them into a commanding lead – a quarter-final place apparently booked with less than half an hour played.
But in the most astonishing cup comeback of the season and quite likely the decade, Orient respond with a long-range Phil Hoadley effort that on any given Saturday would have been palmed away by Peter Bonetti, but this is not one of them – and after half-time a Chelsea side containing such aces as Hollins, Cooke, Hudson, Osgood, Kember and Houseman fold like a pack of a cards.
Mickey Bullock and Barrie Fairbrother are presented with gifts that cannot fail to accept, the visitors defence appearing to have come from easy street rather than the King’s Road such are the sitters they offer up.
The following week Chelsea would lose a Wembley League Cup Final to Stoke City they were heavily fancied to win, their hold on the European Cup Winners Cup relinquished earlier in the season to Swedish part-timers Atvidabergs – this direction of travel leading to the rocky road of a mid-70s relegation.
1972-73: EVERTON 0 MILLWALL 2 – Fourth Round (3/2/1973): Less than three years after becoming league champions by playing some truly inventive football, only three of the 1970 title-winning team are still around for this fourth-round encounter – the intervening seasons seeing Everton finish no higher than 14th.
Arriving at Goodison were a solid second division outfit whose team of experienced old sweats could be expected to give the home side a decent work-out but not deny onward progress to the next round. Had Bryan King not lived up to his oft-quoted reputation as ‘the best goalkeeper outside Division One‘ in making a brilliant double save from Joe Harper, things may have been different, but hanging in the air is a sense of foreboding as Everton flatter to deceive in their forward play – and when veteran defender Harry Cripps heads the visitors in front on the hour, for the School of Science more time spent at the back of the class beckons.
The tie is wrapped up when Millwall centre-forward Alf Wood scores with a powerful header at the death, Everton, currently embroiled in a run of only one win their last nine league outings, eventually coming to rest in 17th place, their lowest for many a year.
The following season they would climb to ninth and rise even higher in the one following – but in the land of Evertonia, the 70s overall would amount to a series of false dawns and fake light.
1973-74: HEREFORD UNITED 2 WEST HAM UNITED 1 – Third Round replay (9/1/1974): If the 70s could produce such bizarre anomalies as sending records by Lieutenant Pigeon and The Wurzels to number one but not those of Mott the Hoople and The Clash, then lightning striking twice in the same place was not such an implausibility.
Two years on from recording the biggest post-war FA Cup exit when as a non-league side they ousted Newcastle, Hereford were by now a Football League club having been elected to the 92 at the end of an incredible 1971-72 season – their FA Cup run that term ending against West Ham, the first division side, boasting a clutch of big-name players, needing an Upton Park replay to finally dispense with the part-time opposition.
Two seasons and a promotion to Division Three later, Hereford were again paired with The Hammers, their third-round visit to the Boleyn going to within seconds of being victorious. The visitors were only denied victory by a breathtaking individual goal by Pat Holland after taking a first half lead through centre-forward Eric Redrobe – the great Bobby Moore thus spared an embarrassing cup defeat in what proved his last first team game in the claret and blue.
Played the following Wednesday afternoon, a UK energy crisis prohibiting the use of floodlights, like Newcastle before them West Ham go ahead in an Edgar Street replay, taking the lead through a Clyde Best header. But before the break the home side are level, Tommy Naylor restoring parity from the penalty spot.
Watching West Ham being harried to distraction brings to mind that well-known sitcom catchphrase of ‘They don’t like it up ’em‘ and as such it seems fitting a player named Jones should fire Hereford into round four, centre-back Alan ultimately settling the issue.
While victory was another significant steppingstone on a path that within three seasons would lead Hereford United to Division Two, this Herefordshire horror show also had a galvanising effect on West Ham – who 15 months later recovered to such an extent they lifted the FA Cup.
1974-75: BURNLEY 0 WIMBLEDON 1 – Third Round (4/1/1975): Even today, the third-round defeat of seventh in Division One Burnley by visiting part-timers from Southern League still seems so far from the extremes of leftfield to be scarcely credible.
In an era long before squad rotation and being in the FA Cup treated as an inconvenience by those with designs on Champions League football and staying in or reaching the Premier League, Burnley, currently enjoying an eight-match unbeaten league run, send out a full-strength side to confront the non-leaguers of Wimbledon – the team including former England full-back Keith Newton, current Welsh international Leighton James and Brian Flynn, soon to join James in playing for Wales.
Had Bob Lord permitted television cameras into the Turf Moor, (the boorish Burnley chairman no fan of televised football), the game would have even greater resonance than it does and made a household name of Wimbledon goalkeeper Dickie Guy three weeks before he was destined to become one – match reports referring to three good saves made before half-time.
Indeed, modern parlance may even credit him with an assist in the goal that was to prove decisive. His long clearance four minutes after the break is dealt with in haphazard fashion by the home defence, the ball rolling the way of Mick Mahon – previously a giant-killer with Colchester in 1971 – who shoots through a crowd of players to put Wimbledon ahead.
In the remaining forty or so minutes Guy distinguishes himself in the way he would against European Cup Final destined Leeds in the next round (saving a penalty when the teams draw 0-0 at Elland Road and performing well in the Selhurst Park-staged replay where the visitors scrape through by the only goal), Wimbledon surviving a few Turf Moor anxieties before becoming the first non-league team for 55 years to win on a first division ground – two divisions added to the Football League structure since it last occurred.
In the aftermath Burnley trundled through the remainder of their league programme to finish tenth, but from looking every inch a solid topflight club subsidence began to appear, a dismal 1975-76 campaign resulting in relegation and the beginning of a downward spiral that by 1982 would see them encounter Wimbledon on level footing – both clubs by this point members of Division Three.
Elected to the Football League in 1977, in the years to come Wimbledon would be managed by Dave Bassett, a member of the victorious Turf Moor team of ’75, their steady rise up the Football League ladder eventually leading to the top division in 1986. At the same time Burnley were languishing in the lower reaches of Division Four – the turnaround in fortunes virtually complete two years later when the Dons pulled off an against the odds FA Cup Final victory over Liverpool, while Burnley continued to bump along in the basement.
1975-76: LEEDS UNITED 0 CRYSTAL PALACE 1 – Fourth Round (24/1/1976): Even during the Don Revie era of relentlessly pursuing trophies and imposing overt physicality on the opposition, Leeds (Colchester, Sunderland, Bristol City), were occasionally susceptible to a banana skin – such vulnerability exposed again on the visit in January 1976 of third division Crystal Palace.
The Selhurst Park side are managed by a flamboyant figure in Malcolm Allison, an FA Cup winner as a coach with Manchester City in 1969. While he is resplendent in the lucky Fedora now making an appearance whenever his side played an FA Cup tie, Leeds, fielding ten players on duty at the European Cup Final eight months before look distinctly old hat – the hosts appearing laboured and lethargic in comparison to a Palace outfit who are neat and inventive.
The difference is evident when some enterprising wing play instigated by future England international Peter Taylor results in striker Dave Swindlehurst heading the visitors into a first half lead, an advantage Palace will protect without undue alarm, the most symbolic action of the second half being the substitution of skipper Billy Bremner for Norman Hunter. Each an Elland Road warhorse of the past 15 years (and veterans of the 1972 FA Cup triumph), both were destined to leave Leeds at the end of the season.
By such time Palace had progressed through two more rounds, exiting at the semi-final stage to eventual winners Southampton and although Leeds reached the last four twelve months later, the days of being in regular contention for silverware were becoming the stuff of recollection rather than routine.
1976-77: CARDIFF CITY 1 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 0 – Third Round (8/1/1977): While always lacking the consistency to mount a sustained title challenge, when cup competitions in early 70s came about it was always unwise to discount Spurs – testified by two League Cup and UEFA Cup triumph in successive seasons.
But after long serving double winning manager Bill Nicholson suddenly resigned in September 1974 the buffers came into view. Citing a lack of respect from within the squad, some of whom ascribed themselves more football acumen than a boss who needed the fingers of both hands to count the trophies on his resume, on Nicholson departing the Tottenham High Road became something of a cul-de-sac.
In the midst of a disjointed 1976-77 campaign that already seen them woeful against Welsh opposition in losing to Wrexham in round two of the League Cup, Spurs actually went to Cardiff in reasonable form having lost only once in their last five league matches.
Yet a tendency to be at sixes and sevens away from White Hart Lane (or eights to be more precise given they lost 8-2 at Derby in mid-October), showed itself once more in going behind at Ninian Park in just seven minutes – Cardiff striker Peter Sayer finishes smartly in putting the Bluebirds ahead, although afforded the same space his pop star namesake Leo is also likely to have punished a dreamy Tottenham defence.
Promoted from Division Three the season before, Cardiff would survive through this cup-tie and by the skin of their teeth, avoid going straight back down come April – their continued existence as a second division club bringing home and away contests against Spurs the following season, whose poor form through the spring of 1977 brought the indignity of relegation.
1977-78: WREXHAM 4 NEWCASTLE UNITED 1 – Fourth Round replay (6/2/1978): By qualifying for Europe by virtue of a fifth placed finish (their highest placing since returning to the topflight 12 years before), the path ahead looked full of promise for the black and whites – thus it remains a mystery how Newcastle came find themselves in the fast lane out of Division One so soon.
In a season that started disastrously, with ten defeats in the first eleven league matches and then just became worse (no wins from the last nineteen fixtures), Newcastle were racing certainties for the drop long before the mathematics took over.
After making heavy weather of Peterborough United in round three, they drew more third division opposition in round four, promotion chasing Wrexham twice coming from behind at St James’ Park to force a replay.
The difference in momentum gripping both clubs is clear to see when two days later Newcastle are routed 4-1 at the Racecourse, prolific striker Dixie McNeil following his brace on Tyneside with another on home turf, Bobby Shinton and Les Cartwright also on target for the hosts who dominate throughout, a Micky Burns goal briefly restoring level terms before Wrexham quickly regained the initiative.
Before the end of the year the Magpies would return to North Wales in visiting for a league fixture – third division champions Wrexham and relegated Newcastle entering Division Two from opposite directions.
1978-1979: SHREWSBURY TOWN 2 MANCHESTER CITY 0 – Fourth Round (25/1/1979): Your genial host here at SAMTIMONIOUS.com declares an interest in this fixture – being present among the 14, 215 at Gay Meadow when his third division hometown team sent a team containing ten international players slipping and sliding out of the FA Cup.
Few games, if any, ever captured the raucous atmosphere Shrewsbury’s compact home by the Severn for 97 years was able to generate better than this encounter. The state of a tricky, thawing pitch prompted indignation from City boss Tony Book who was adamant the tie should not have proceeded – although late 60s/early 70s footage of Maine Road attests to the fact he played on surfaces just as challenging.
In retrospect there is a sense his reservations have transmitted to the visiting team, their hesitancy, particularly in defence, exploited after just nine minutes when Scottish winger Paul Maguire dashes through to put Shrewsbury ahead.
The half-time introduction of former England great Colin Bell for Polish international Kaziu Denya momentarily allows the visitors to exert some control, but when a Maguire flag-kick is met with a glancing Sammy Chapman header to put Town further ahead (they profited from this near-post corner routine throughout the season), City find they are in a rut too deep to climb out of.
Spending the final twenty-five minutes lurching between desperation and exasperation, there is a shot from Mick Channon that rebounds back off the woodwork – but that near miss aside, the late pressure City exert is mostly smoke without fire.
The wild jubilation among most of those present would be repeated three months later when amid more joyous scenes Shrewsbury Town became champions of Division Three – the intervening period also bringing the notable achievement of reaching the FA Cup quarterfinals for the first time at which point they would be eliminated by Wolves, but only after holding the first division side to a Molineux draw.
As for Manchester City on that cold day back in January 1979, it was somewhat ironic they should be victims of the last great FA Cup shock of the 1970s, given how they entered the decade as cup holders.
Watching their side slither to defeat against low-ranked opposition full of drive and intent, while his (or her) own team were tense and tentative, there must have been a Manchester City supporter in the cramped confines of the Station End terrace bemoaning a lack of application from those wearing white shirts, musing perhaps that City had become like a hotel in California – where ‘we haven’t had that spirit here since 1969′………………
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.