First watched : 1 May 1976
Here is a genuine milestone, the first televised football match I watched from beginning to end.
My interest in professional football was slow to develop. I first became aware of the sport when my mum ( an avid Man Utd fan although I'm not sure she ever went to a game ) bought me a sticker album for what must have been the 1971-72 season. I formed some likes and dislikes, largely based on the strips I think, which have never really left me . I also liked certain players whose stickers I got including Norman Hunter, Asa Hartford and Len Cantello. I do still tend to think of those 22 clubs as being the ones that really belong in the top flight, even including Huddersfield Town who were relegated at the end of that season and have never got back to the highest level.
At school nearly everyone was a Leeds United fan and the first Cup Final I remember being talked about was the 1973 one when Sunderland beat Leeds. I didn't watch the game but I remember the shock on everyone's faces at the result. I also remember hearing about the 1974 Final when Liverpool crushed Newcastle ( including the bragging fool Malcolm McDonald ) as a number of kids seemed to be switching their allegiance to the Scousers despite Leeds winning the title in some style that season. I think I might actually have watched some of the build up to the 1975 Final ( West Ham v Fulham ) and got bored before the match began. It's a shame I missed that game as it was an ex-Rochdale player, Alan Taylor, who stole the show with both goals.
This being my first full match on TV ( I saw snatches of the 1974 World Cup ) was a direct result of the demise of my Adventurous Club ( see the post on Here Come The Double Deckers for more details ) in April 1976 . As I mentioned there the other kids started a new club from which I was specifically excluded. There was no alternative but to walk a short way down the road and play with a lad called Mark instead. Mum was never happy at me associating with him because he'd unintentionally caused me a serious injury a few years before but I'd never held it against him.
The important thing now was that he and John , my chief nemesis ( and next door neighbour ) absolutely detested each other. Though it rarely erupted into open hostilities their's was a classic alpha male rivalry and they tended to avoid each other most of the time. Mark was not involved in the Adventurous Club; indeed its main adventure was an ( unsuccessful ) mission to retrieve a football he had allegedly stolen from John's school. I correctly judged that John would see having Mark in his new club as too high a price to pay to complete my ostracism.
Though a looser cannon, Mark was usually a more easy-going and friendly lad than John if you showed him due deference and those few weeks spent mainly in his company were a pleasant change. His main interests were fishing and football. Though his dad was ( hopefully still is but I haven't seen him recently ) a Dale stalwart Mark was a big Man U fan. In the week before their encounter with Southampton he pored endlessly over his pre-match programme telling me who the danger men were and who was most likely to score the winner.
Because of this I can still tell you the United team without recourse to wikipedia : Alex Stepney, Alex Forsyth, Stewart Houston, Martin Buchan, Brian Greenhoff, Gerry Daly, Sammy McIlroy, Steve Coppell, Stuart Pearson, Lou Macari, Gordon Hill. Sub : David McCreery. This was pretty much the team that had won the Second Division title twelve months earlier. They had finished the season in third place behind Liverpool and surprise package QPR whose manager they would lure away in little over a year's time. Coppell was my gran's favourite player , his balancing of a playing career and studying at university appealing to her ideals of prudence and hard work.
Their opponents were Second Division Southampton of whose number I could now name around seven. Though no fan of United I wanted them to win because the Saints had spoiled the party by defeating Crystal Palace then of the Third Division who had made the semi-final after a thrilling giant-killing run.
It wasn't to be. United were lacklustre throughout and seven minutes from time their former player Jim McCalliog played a perfect pass for the little known Bobby Stokes to run on to , take the ball past Stepney and score. Many years later I would get to know McCalliog slightly as he was living a few doors away while managing ( not with any great success ) Halifax Town and he seemed like a nice bloke. The result was a sensation and made their manager Lawrie McMenemy, who'd never actually played League football , a household name. Stokes unfortunately fell victim to what seemed a bit of a curse on Cup Final scorers during the seventies as he , Taylor , Ian Porterfield ( the Sunderland scorer ) and Allan Clarke ( the Leeds scorer in 1972 ) all suffered serious injuries not long afterwards which blighted their subsequent careers. He died twenty years ago of bronchial pneumonia aged 44.
Mark was mortified but he got over it as you do and enjoyed their triumph over Liverpool the following year.I didn't see that one , preferring to go for a walk with my dad, who was completely uninterested in football, instead.
By the time of the next one I was fully engaged with football , buying Shoot and watching all the televised matches. Like everyone else I expected Arsenal, in the top five, to beat Ipswich, not too far clear of the relegation zone and with some of their best players only half-fit , comfortably. Though I didn't like Arsenal much I hated Ipswich for knocking one of my favourite teams, West Brom, out in the semis. Arsenal though didn't turn up and Ipswich beat them much more comfortably than the 1-0 scoreline suggests. It was Alan Hudson's last game for Arsenal and effectively the end of his career as a top class player.
Arsenal returned to Wembley the following year and beat United 3-2 after one of the most remarkable finales. Arsenal were cruising to a 2-0 victory when their manager Terry Neill succumbed to sentimentality and decided to give young substitute Steve Walford, a defender, a run-out. Quick as a flash United exploited the defensive confusion caused and were level. Then , just as suddenly, Liam Brady , by a long distance the man of the match, set up a last minute winner for Alan Sunderland to give Arsenal the victory.
Arsenal came back for the third year in a row in 1980 to play West Ham, still marooned in the Second Division despite the presence of top talent like Trevor Brooking and Alan Devonshire. The former of those two scored the winner early on with a rare header but the most significant incident occurred late in the game . Due to injury West Ham fielded 17 year old Paul Allen in midfield, the youngest ever player in the Final at the time. He was at the forefront of a West Ham breakaway and bearing down on goal to crown a fairy tale story. Then Willie Young, Arsenal's graceless ginger stopper , chopped him down , taking the booking for the team. The outrage at his cynicism led to the introduction of mandatory red cards for such " professional" fouls, a rule change which remains in the game today.
1981 saw a team I had some emotional investment in , Manchester City, make the Final against Tottenham Hotspur. City were still recovering from the crazed second coming of Malcolm Allison two years earlier and their appearance in the Final was something of a surprise having knocked out title contenders and press darlings Ipswich along the way. City acquitted themselves well in the Final and were unlucky to be held to a draw by means of an unfortunate deflection from Tommy Hutchison who'd scored City's goal earlier. In the replay they were edged 3-2 with the winner a memorable solo goal from the less celebrated of their Argentinian pair, Ricky Villa. Our maths teacher was a big Spurs fan and was so overcome with the victory we spent the entire next lesson talking about it despite the imminence of our O Level exams.
Tottenham had to do without the Argentinians the following year as we were fighting them in the South Atlantic at the time which gave Second Division QPR under Terry Venables more of a chance . This one also went to a replay with a Glenn Hoddle penalty finally settling the tie. It hasn't left much impression on me.
1983's Final was the third in a row to go to a replay with Ron Atkinson's Manchester United facing Jimmy Melia's Brighton who'd managed to combine Cup heroics including knocking out Liverpool and relegation from the top flight. The previous Saturday Brighton's giant centre half Steve Foster had been booked which took him over the suspension line and despite a High court challenge to the FA he was unable to play in the Final. His replacement utility man Steve Gatting played heroically and Brighton would have won the game had former Rangers striker Gordon Smith not fluffed a golden chance in the last minute. With Foster restored to the side Brighton went down 4-0 in the replay with the United fans gleefully taunting Foster with "What a difference you have made !"
I watched the 1984 Final at my hall of residence at Leeds when Everton on the up beat Watford in decline 2-0, Graham Taylor paying the penalty for sticking too long with dodgy keeper Steve Sherwood. BBC 's coverage was notable for giving too many free plugs to Watford chairman Elton John's latest single.
I watched the 1985 Final between Manchester United and Everton at home and I remember warning my mum that referee Peter Willis, who always caused controversy whenever he reffed a Dale game , would do something to get himself noticed. He duly delivered by sending off United's Kevin Moran for a not especially bad tackle so I suppose justice was done when United won the game with a great goal by Norman Whiteside .
I don't remember much about the all-Merseyside final in 1986 apart from getting annoyed by all the cloying comment about the rival fans sitting together as if the Red half hadn't just got English clubs banned from European competition for the rest of the decade. Liverpool won 3-1 as part of a Double.
The following year's was my favourite Final as Coventry , a team I'd long been willing to actually win something , beat Tottenham 3-2 after putting out Manchester United in the earlier rounds. They won with an own goal from Gary Mabutt but it's journeyman striker Keith Houchen's second equaliser , a classic diving header that's remembered.
The 1988 Final was also won by the underdogs as Wimbledon spoiled Liverpool's party by taking home the trophy with a headed goal from Lawrie Sanchez and a penalty save by giant keeper Dave Beasant. Those two moments apart the game was pretty dismal.
A year later there was a dismal atmosphere to the game for a different reason given the deaths at Hillsborough in one of the semi's. It was Liverpool and Everton again with the Reds winning 3-2 after extra time.
In 1990 it was Manchester United against Crystal Palace who'd beaten Liverpool 4-3 in the semis. This was one of the rare occasions I wanted United to win a game, having a strong dislike of Steve Coppell's Palace since witnessing their gamesmanship in a match at Maine Road three years earlier. Palace had also put Dale out in the fifth round and if we could have got past them our quarter-final opponents would have been fellow Fourth Division side Cambridge. The match was a 3-3 thriller with fingers pointed at United's Scottish goalkeeper Jim Leighton despite none of the Palace goals being due to an obvious howler. Then came the decision that turned things round for the beleagured United manager Alec Ferguson when he dropped Leighton ( who he'd brought in from his previous club Aberdeen ) for the replay, replacing him with former Coventry and Luton man Les Sealey. Sealey duly kept a clean sheet and United won 1-0 with a goal from soon to be displaced left back Lee Martin.
1991 was a disappointing result for me . Like most neutrals I had great respect for Brian Clough and his Nottingham Forest team. After Forest's 1980 European Cup win he'd lost his way a bit , over-spent on indifferent players and mislaid right hand man Peter Taylor but gradually he'd rebuilt the side and by the late eighties they were clearly the second best side in the country playing a scintillating brand of football. They weren't able to seriously challenge Liverpool for the title but were a formidable cup side with two recent League Cups and a victory in the short lived Full Members Cup. Now they had the chance to give Brian Clough the one honour that had always eluded him.
It didn't turn out that way. Forest could rightly feel aggrieved that bubble-permed referee Roger Milford, anxious to maintain his smiley image, didn't send off Paul Gascoigne for his two berserk fouls ( either one of which would get him a straight red today ) early on which would have given them a considerable advantage. Nevertheless they didn't play that well and eventually succumbed to a Des Walker own goal after extra time. During the break after full time Clough excited comment by talking to a policeman rather than going on the pitch and giving a team talk. It signalled the beginning of the end ; two years later he was forced by a combination of drink, scandal and relegation to relinquish his post at Forest and he never managed anyone again.
The 1992 Final was routine with Liverpool easily disposing of Second Division Sunderland 2-0 in a match I only remember for Jimmy Hill's bizarre argument that a blatant penalty Sunderland's Paul Bracewell got away with didn't count because of the angle of his tackle.
1993 saw Arsenal beat Sheffield Wednesday 2-1 with a goal from their first reserve centre half Andy Linighan and then a year later United beat Chelsea 4-0. The outcomes were getting very predictable. 1995 sprung a bit of a surprise when the "dogs of war" approach Joe Royle adopted at Everton to stave off relegation was enough to beat United , deprived of the services of Eric Cantona after his moment of lunacy earlier in the year. I think I saw Cantona crown his comeback with the winning goal against Liverpool the following year but my interest in top flight football was waning. With each year of the Premier League it was clearer that money ruled football more than ever before and the number of potential prizewinners was shrinking to a handful of clubs populated by dislikeable foreign mercenaries.
I don't think I saw the 1997 Final between Chelsea and Middlesbrough; I just had too much else going on in my life at the time, breaking a twenty-year viewing stretch. And I'm not sure I've ever sat down and watched a full Final since I got married late that year. I may have been tempted by the City-Stoke final in 2011 had I been in but I was out on a walk that day.
No comments:
Post a Comment