April 29 – Chelsea Leeds Ruckus
THE FA Cup Final replay, a victim of modern-day managers whinging about fixture pile-ups, took place for the first time since 1912 today in 1970, when the southern fairies of Chelsea took on the northern monkeys of Leeds United in a typically fiery clash.
Two weeks earlier, the two bitter rivals had had so much fun playing each other that they decided to do it again after a 2-2 draw, this time supplementing an atrocious Wembley pitch that had hosted the Horse of the Year show the week before for Old Trafford.
This would be the only time between 1923 and 2000 that an FA Cup Final was played away from Wembley, as both sides were gunning for their first ever FA Cup win.
On a Wednesday night in Manchester the two rivals took to the pitch in front of a record 28 million television viewers who were privy to one of the most rough ‘n’ tumble games ever seen on Blighty’s shores.
And what else would you expect with the likes of Norman Hunter, Ron Harris, et al in attendance?
Chopper Harris set the tone early, clattering into Eddie Gray, giving him a knee-knack that the Scot struggled with for the rest of the game. Jack Charlton evened things up when he headbutted and kneed Peter Osgood, whilst Hunter and Ian Hutchinson traded punches.
This was of course played out in an era when men were men, so no red or yellow cards were issued by ref Eric Jennings. Years later, David Elleray re-watched the match with his referee hat on, dishing out six red cards and 20 yellow cards, which goes to show how much the game has changed. Christiano wouldn’t have last five minutes back then.
Between the punches, lunges, hacking, eye-gouging and fish-hooking a game of football threatened to break out when Mick Jones opening the scoring for Leeds after 35 minutes.
Peter Osgood managed to escape the attention of Charlton long enough to grab an equaliser in the 78th minute, due largely to the fact that the Leeds man was chasing Hutchinson for a spot of payback on a dead leg he had administered seconds earlier.
Extra-time again followed and as the two sides took their epic final towards the four-hour mark Chelsea right-back David Webb latched onto a long throw-in and scored the winner and the cup was heading back down south.
See some of the carnage below and check out a much more sedate FA Cup final that was also going on today here.
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