It Was Forty Years Ago Today

Well, it wasn’t exactly forty years ago today, but it was forty years ago West Bromwich Albion, the last of our four FA Cup survivors, last won the Cup. They stand alone amongst the four clubs left in this year’s competition as being the only club to have won the competition more than once, but you’d have to be considerably older than I am in order to be able to remember it. In fact, Albion have won the FA Cup five times – twice in the nineteenth century and then again in 1931 and 1954, but it is their last win, in 1968, that their supporters regard as the iconic one. It was a run that nearly ended before it started. They needed a penalty to earn a draw against Colchester United in the Third Round, and another replay in the Fourth Round against Southampton. They then knocked Portsmouth out in the Fifth Round (meaning that both Portsmouth and West Bromwich Albion have beaten each other on the way to winning the FA Cup), and then finally saw Liverpool off after two replays in the quarter-finals. The semi-final was a proper internecine affair against Birmingham City at Villa Park. Albion started the match as favourites and won 2-0.

Their opponents at Wembley were Everton, and there wasn’t much on paper between the two sides. Everton had finished the season in fifth place in the First Division (which had been won by Manchester City, of all people), while the Albion had finished eighth. The year before, Albion had lost in the League Cup final to Third Division Queens Park Rangers after having led 2-0 at half-time.Whilst Albion had Jeff Astle and Tony Brown, Everton had Brian Labone and Ron Springett. It was a match for firsts – the first match to be covered in colour by the BBC and the first FA Cup final in which a substitute (Dennis Clarke for West Bromwich Albion – substitutes had only been introduced in 1965 and were still only very seldom used for tactical reasons) – but, in truth, it was a poor match and finished 0-0, and looking likely to go to a replay for the first time since in had been played at Wembley. Three minutes into extra time, however, Jeff Astle thrashed the ball in from the edge of the penalty area for the only goal of the match, and it was the sort of match in which Everton didn’t have anything left to give.

West Bromwich Albion are one of those clubs that are very good at false dawns. If told anyone in 1968 that a club from the Midlands would be winning the league championship in four years’ time, Albion would have been most people’s choices. Aston Villa were in a decline that would see them in the Third Division by 1971, Wolves had only just been promoted back to the First Division and Derby County (who would be fashioned by Brian Clough into League Champions into League Champions by 1972) had just finished fifth from bottom in the Second Division. Albion would go on to the European Cup Winners Cup quarter-finals the following season and then lost the 1970 League Cup final to Manchester City. The purple patch ended, however, with the departure of Alan Ashman in 1971, and they were relegated two years later. Jeff Astle sadly dies in 2002 at the age of 59.

As with the other three contenders, this weekend’s matches are uncharted territory for West Bromwich Albion, and what I’ve noticed over the last seven days is that those that had been talking of the Cup as a hindrance to their promotion aspirations have largely fallen silent. The fact of the matter is that even if they don’t get promoted this season, they’ll be there or thereabouts next season, and (I’ll say this yet again) this is the best chance that West Bromwich Albion could possibly have to win the FA Cup. It promises to be a magnificent weekend of football.

Pompey Play Up

There are a couple of clubs for whom 2007/08 could turn out to to be the perfect season. For supporters of, say, Hull City, promotion to the Premier League coupled with a failure on the part of Leeds United to get back into League One could be regarded as everything that their supporters have ever dreamed of. If there is one club, however, that is looking at having a once in a lifetime, best ever season, it’s Portsmouth, whose supporters could be celebrating an unprecedented double, come the end of May – winning the FA Cup for the first time in almost seventy years, coupled with their bitter rivals Southampton being relegated from the Championship. The prospect of European football coming to Fratton Park for the first time whilst Southampton have to spend at least one season playing against the likes of Cheltenham Town and Peterborough United must cause a small bead of drool to form in the corner of their mouths.

Portsmouth’s involvement in this weekend’s FA Cup semi-finals adds to the “retro” air hanging over this year’s competition. Although they have managed to establish themselves as a Premier League club that looks capable of booking a European place on league position alone under what has turned out to be the surprisingly astute managership of Harry Redknapp, their cup record over the last fifty years or so has been pretty terrible. Their only FA Cup win came in 1939, and led to one of them becoming one of those standard pub quiz answers – the football programme was halted at the outbreak of war, meaning that Portsmouth would hold onto the Cup for seven years, until Derby County beat Charlton Athletic in the 1946 final. They had been promoted into the First Division in 1927, and had made two previous FA Cup Finals, losing to Bolton Wanderers in 1927 and to Manchester City in 1934. On the pitch, the 1938/39 season had been a disappointing one – they finished the season in seventeenth place in the twenty-two club First Division table, four points above the relegation places. Their FA Cup run provided a welcome distraction. The draw seemed to favour them, as they saw off Lincoln City of Division Three North, followed by West Bromwich Albion and West Ham United of Division Two. In the quarter-finals, over 44,000 saw them surprise mid-table Preston North End, before they beat fellow First Division strugglers Huddersfield Town 2-1 at Highbury in the semi-finals.

To say that they were expected to lose the final would be something of an understatement. Their opponents, Wolverhampton Wanderers, had finished the season as runners-up in the First Division, and they had powered their way to Wembley, beating Bradford Park Avenue, Leicester City, Liverpool and the eventual league champions Everton, before beating that season’s surprise package, Grimsby Town, 5-0 in the other semi-final at Old Trafford. They’d scored nineteen goals in their five FA Cup matches prior to the final. Under the managership of the influential Major Frank Buckley, and captained by the twenty-three year old Stan Cullis (who would go on to manage the great Wolves team of the 1950s), it seemed like a formality that they would end their season with victory at Wembley. As has happened so often in the FA Cup final, though, Portsmouth failed to read the script, and manager Jack Tinn (who famously ascribed his team’s success to his “lucky spats” – fabric shoe covers, in case you were wondering) went on to cause a surprise every bit as big as the more famous (and more recent) FA Cup Final surprises.

The match was played, of course, at Wembley on the 29th April. Portsmouth took the lead after half an hour, when Bert Barlow (who had signed for Portsmouth from Wolves earlier in the season) with a cross-cum-shot. Wolves, who were famed for their youth, had frozen on the big day and Portsmouth doubled their lead just before half-time when Jimmy McAlinden crossed the ball over the stranded Wolves goalkeeper Alec Scott for Scottish striker John Anderson to score from close range. Two-nil up at half-time, Portsmouth could have been forgiven for taking their foot off the pedal, but any chances of a second half revival were quashed a minute in, when Scott fumbled a shot and had to stretch his arm out and put his hand on the ball on the goal line to stop the ball from going in. It was only momentary respite for the unfortunate Wolves goalkeeper, though, as winger Cliff Parker ran in and kicked the ball away from under his hand to make it 3-0. There was a glimmer of hope for Wolves when Dicky Dorsett pulled a goal back for Wolves from close range eight minutes later, but the match ended as a contest after 71 minutes when Fred Worrall crossed for Parker to head in his second goal of the match. It finished 4-1 to Portsmouth.

Jack Tinn retired as manager in 1947 and was replaced by Bob Jackson, but he was credited with building the Portsmouth team that won the First Division championship in 1949 and 1950. Although they managed to finish in third place in 1955, the team fell into a decline and were relegated in 1959, and it took until 1987 for them to get back into the top division under the managership of Alan Ball (having sunk as low as the Fourth Division in 1978), but with financial problems hampering their progress, they were relegated after just one season. In recent times, their best FA Cup run came in 1992, when they beat Nottingham Forest on the way to a famous semi-final against Liverpool. Having drawn the first match, it looked as if they were on their way to a massive surprise when Darren Anderton put them ahead in extra-time. However, Ronnie Whelan levelled things up with a couple of minutes left to play, and Liverpool won the subsequent penalty shoot-out. It has taken Portsmouth sixteen years to get this far in the FA Cup again, and the sense of expectation in the town is palpable. News reports earlier this week showed people that had queued all night at Fratton Park to get their hands on the last few tickets for tomorrow’s match, and there seems to be a growing belief that this will be their year. The media might not care too much for the FA Cup now that the famous names have been knocked out, but it would be foolhardy to suggest to a Portsmouth fan that it doesn’t matter any more.