May 17 – Gullit, Di Matteo and Chelsea win the Cup

THE FA Cup. The oldest cup competition in the world. As English as warm beer, cricket and celebrity-based tittle-tattle magazines.

Today in 1997 the Cup was won by a foreign manager for the first time ever (which we found a tad surprising given the oft-peddled assertion that all players, managers and owners have been from abroad ever since Rupert Murdoch began running the game in 1992).

The victorious man in question was Rudd Gullit who was then the gaffer at Chelsea. In those heady pre-Abramovich days the Stamford Bridge regulars were not quite as spoilt as they are now and Chelsea were looking for their first FA Cup win since 1970.

Their opponents were those heroic failures Middlesbrough who, under the able stewardship of Bryan Robson had not only managed to get relegated, but had also already lost the League Cup final.

The portents were not good for Robson’s band of merry men and they didn’t get any better when the match started.

It was took just 42 seconds for the ‘Boro defence to be breached when Juninho gave away the ball and Dennis Wise passed to Italian midfield maestro Roberto Di Matteo who carried the ball unopposed into the ‘Boro half and let rip from fully 35 yards. Ben Roberts in the ‘Boro goal was beaten and the Smoggies season just got that little bit worse.

Even worse was to come when Fabrizio Ravanelli limped off injured after just 20 minutes, but they were spared when a goal by Gianluca (Uncle) Festa was chalked off for offside.

But late in the second half Gianfranco Zola superbly back-heeled the ball in midair to Eddie Newton who blasted home the winner.

Newton said later the team had been raring to go before kick-off. “In the final itself, we were very confident going into the game. We honestly believed we would win if we stuck to our gameplan, and we did,” he said.

“I played in 1994 when we lost to United. We had a lot of young players who hadn’t experienced the big-time games yet. This was a totally different scenario. We had such a good blend of youth and experience, and of English and foreign players. It just seemed the perfect mix. We got the best possible start through Roberto Di Matteo’s goal and the rest is history as they say.”

See both goals below and come back tomorrow for another bite-sized dose of football history. Until then ratfans, check out this story which, had it played out differently, could have altered the course of British football history FOREVER! WHoooaaaa!