From Bovril to Champagne
When the FA cup really mattered Part 1 - The 1970s
by
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It's 1pm on Wednesday, 29
These fans are not going to miss this, whatever the consequences - a rap over the knuckles from the boss, a summons to the headmaster's office - they are going to be there.
This time it hasn't been a question of tickets. The Cup Final waifs and strays, the hangers-on, the non-supporters only ever wanted to experience the `occasion'. That meant 3pm, on Saturday, at Wembley, watched by royalty, with all the accompanying pomp and pageantry. A midweek evening game at far-off Old Trafford is another matter. But to the real fans, this is an even bigger game. Among the Chelsea fans is John Foley, the 15-year-old skinhead from east London. Naturally, he's wearing his lucky raincoat, Sta-Prest trousers and DMs. Of course, he's supposed to be at school in Walthamstow. Fat chance. He's not missing this for anything. “I bunked off,” John says, matter-of-factly, as if to demonstrate that any other course of action would be absurd and unthinkable. So, instead of catching the bus to the Sir George Monoux School, John has made his way to Euston to join the throng of Chelsea fans, many of who are already sinking a few pints in readiness for the journey north.
On platform six, their carriage awaits, a football `special' and soon it's on its way. As the trains surge north, thousands of other Chelsea fans are heading up the M1 towards the Midlands. Among them is a white Mark 2 Ford Cortina, festooned with blue and white, containing five Chelsea fanatics, including brothers Jeff and Steve Van Doorn, veterans of the 1967 Cup Final defeat at the hands of Spurs and both Chelsea to the core. A copy of that day's Daily Mirror is passed around the Cortina. In it, reporter Ken Jones says he expects tonight's final to be: “Hard, perhaps bitter, and possibly violent.” Jones believes it will be another tight affair, but thinks it may rest on a crucial decision by Chelsea boss Dave Sexton. Should he play David Webb, who was given the run-around at Wembley by the silky skills of Eddie Gray, or not? Even at this stage, no one is sure who will be wearing the blue, number six shirt.
In the wider world, The Beatles continue to dominate the news. Young people under 18 will not be allowed in to see John Lennon's “erotic drawings”, which are being displayed at the London Art Gallery in Mayfair. The prints show Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono in various sexual poses. They have caused an outcry, but a magistrate dismisses an indecency summons against the gallery. Design experts slam the “Wee Mannie” mascot, which has been created for the forthcoming Commonwealth Games to be held in Edinburgh. Mr Mathew Wylie, chairman of the council of Industrial Design's Scottish Committee, says that “Wee Mannie” is: “A gimmick which lacks any form of elegance or design.” And the latest kitchen gadget goes on sale. Morphy Richards introduce the Easimix, which is described as: “An electric three speed mixer, made in shake and rinse stainless steel.
In the newspapers, coverage of the FA Cup Final replay jostles for space with Arsenal's triumph in the Fairs Cup. A brilliant night at Highbury sees the Gunners overturn a 3-1 first leg deficit to defeat Belgian side Anderlecht 3-0 with goals by Eddie Kelly, John Radford and Jon Sammels. It is their first major trophy for 17 years and now some people are starting to sit up and take notice of Bertie Mee's side. And, all the time, the football `special' trains are powering northwards, almost swaying with the deafening chants of the Chelsea faithful who, after getting lucky in the first tie, now feel this is going to be their day.
In West Riding, the Leeds coaches are preparing to make the 40-mile journey across The Pennines on the A62. Standing among a group of fellow Leeds fans is Les Wake, wearing his trademark denim jacket, jeans and scarf. This time - because the hangers-on don't view a midweek replay in Manchester as anything remotely like a Cup Final - tickets to true fans are relatively easy to come by. Each club has been allocated 25,000 tickets for the Old Trafford shindig. Les and his brother Eric still had to queue all night but, while the queues for the Wembley game were fraught and tense, this time the atmosphere was far more relaxed, as Les recalls: “This time there was loads of banter throughout the night and everyone seemed in really high spirits. We played football in the Elland Road car park.” Tickets safely secured, Les and Eric prepare to board their coach: “We set off for Old Trafford,” says Les. “As usual, `Wally's Trolleys' were the method of travel. But the thought of going to Manchester and back on a bone-shaker was not my choice of travel.” The Leeds fans travelling across The Pennines are supremely confident. This is not a side that loses many matches or gives a second chance, as Chelsea have been granted. “We're going to win the Cup! We're going to win the Cup! Ee-aye-addio, we're going to win the Cup!” sing the fans as the coaches travel west through Marsden, Slaithwaite, Linthwaite and Huddersfield and head towards the Pennines.
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About the Book
There was a time, not so long ago, when the FA Cup really mattered. When fans would go to extraordinary lengths to get tickets for Wembley and when the biggest teams of the day saw the FA Cup as a 'must have' rather than a 'nice to have.' The 1970s was, quite simply, a fantastic decade for the most famous domestic competition in the world, a decade in which the wonderful 'David and Goliath' stories which were the very essence of the Cup, at last spread themselves to the final itself. Of course, football fans everywhere know the stories. The famous goals by the likes of Porterfield, Stokes, George, Webb and Osborne. The saves by Montgomery, the misses by Macdonald, the flukes by Greenhoff and Kelly and the 'five minutes of madness' of the 1979 final. But what are not known are the stories of the fans who were at Wembley to witness these amazing matches which are so fondly remembered today. This book features, first-hand, exclusive stories from the fans who were there. Fans who defied the FA's patently unfair ticket allocation to get to Wembley. The book features love, tragedy, kinship and loyalty all played out before a backdrop of pop music, television, films, news and politics. It is a book not about players and celebrities but about true football fans, many of whom regard their personal Wembley experience as one of the greatest - or worst - occasions of their life.
About the Author
Matthew Eastley was born in 1966, the greatest year of the 20th century for all fans of English football. His boyhood footballing memories, though, centre around the FA Cup Final and he grew up during the 1970s, a fabulous decade for this world-famous competition. Fascinated with football from an early age he immersed himself in a world of FKS football stickers, Subbuteo, The Big Match and Match of the Day. But everything paled into insignificance when FA Cup Final day came around. During the 1970s, like millions of other football fanatics, he would rise early and settle in front of the television to watch almost seven hours of FA Cup build up and action. It was always his dream to go to an FA Cup Final. Sadly, this has never happened and does not look likely to. So, by way of some kind of compensation, he set out to trace those fans who were fortunate enough to see their teams on the biggest domestic footballing stage of them all and to hear their own unique stories. Their exclusive, first-hand stories are gathered together in this book. His other passions are pop music, films and journalism and so each Cup Final story is told before a backdrop of the songs people were singing, the films and TV shows they were watching and the news stories that were dominating the media, as well as countless quirky stories that defined a unique and unforgettable decade.