Two very different but equally memorable FA Cup Final victories came on 6th May. The first was in 1961, when Tottenham beat Leicester City to secure the first league championship and FA Cup double of modern times.
Spurs won the game 2-0 thanks to second-half goals from Bobby Smith and Terry Dyson. Gordon Banks was in goal for Leicester. That was a momentous achievement, with the Double at the time seen as the ultimate achievement in the domestic game.
In the previous 10 years Manchester United, West Brom and Wolves had all come close, but it was Bill Nicholson’s legendary ‘Super Spurs’ team, captained by Danny Blanchflower, that finally broke the duck, and in some style.
As sports writer and Spurs fan Julie Welch put it so eloquently in her classic film ‘Those Glory Glory Days’:
I can hardly believe what Spurs did that year. Forget Liverpool, forget Manchester United, forget the Brazilians.
Compared to Spurs in ’60/’61, the others were just donkeys.
Eee-aaw.
The second of the aforementioned finals came well over a decade later in 1978, when Roger Osborne scored the only goal of the game to win the FA Cup for Ipswich Town for the first and so far only time in their history.
Opponents Arsenal, with striker Malcolm ‘Supermac’ MacDonald leading the line, were hot favourites before the game. However, Ipswich dominated, hitting the woodwork three times before Osborne capitalised on a weak clearance to ram the winner home in the 77th minute.
Osborne promptly turned around and fainted, and had to be brought back with smelling salts. Evidently still groggy and weak at the knees, he was immediately substituted.
The whole escapade begins at the 1:32:00 mark on this here video…
Talk about going out on a high!
You can follow Martin Cloake on Twitter at @MartinCloake and find more about his books and writing at www.martincloake.com