Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of Sunderland's unforgettable FA Cup final triumph over Leeds United at Wembley. This is the story of the day, via the words of those involved in the game...
PRE-MATCH
DEREK YOUNG
“The players were all guaranteed some money if we wore new boots. But it takes a few weeks to break boots in. We tried them on and feared we would get crippled. Some of the lads just wouldn’t wear them. So Billy Elliott – the boot man on the day of the final – had to black out several pairs of old boots and paint them with the logo of the new ones. Of course it was a wet day and in no time at all, the bloody paint had run off them.”
BOBBY KERR
“I will always remember standing in the tunnel at Wembley. I was bouncing the ball and chewing gum like an idiot. My gob was going like the clappers and the ball was bouncing up and down because we were just stood there waiting – it was just sheer tension.”
DICK MALONE
“We walked out onto the pitch and it looked to me to be nine-tenths Sunderland supporters. I couldn’t believe the red and white. It was the same inside the stadium as it was outside on the roads, and virtually all around the ground was red and white.”
THE EARLY STAGES
RITCHIE PITT (on his early foul on Allan Clarke)
“There is no way I would ever hurt another professional, but part of our game plan was to show Leeds that we weren’t going to be intimidated by them and we were going to give them a game and, of course, we had to do that early on. I think that tackle set the tone for the game.”
PETER LORIMER
“I can think of two or three instances in the first half – in the first ten or 15 minutes in fact – when we had some outstanding chances to get the ball in the back of the net, but we were trying to beat somebody or go around them or take an extra touch and pass it to somebody else and then put it into the net. That was probably a lack of professionalism on our part on the day.”
DAVE WATSON
“It was relentless pressure. It could be Mick Jones one minute and Allan Clarke the next. Peter Lorimer had chances too. But we held on and held it together.”
SUNDERLAND’S GOAL
IAN PORTERFIELD
“I brought the ball down on my left thigh and as it dropped, I hit it right-footed with all my strength from 12 yards. Football is all about instinct and reaction and things like that. I mean you can plan tactics and you can do lots of things but incidents happen and, you know, it is a reaction and your ability to manoeuvre and adjust. It just all fell perfect for me in lots of ways. When I scored, it was the first time I ever felt emotion in my life. I am not an emotional fella, but I could feel the tears come into my eyes.”
BILLY HUGHES
“The only thing I remember seeing is the ball hitting the back of the net. I didn’t even realise it was Porter’s right foot at the time. I think that was the only time he ever scored with his right foot.”
JIMMY MONTGOMERY
“I had a great view of the goal, and I can see it now – Porter scoring in front of a sea of red and white. My first thought was when we scored was, ‘If we can keep a clean sheet, we’ve won the Cup’. But that is easy to say. There was still a long way to go.”
THE SECOND HALF
DAVE WATSON (on a Leeds penalty appeal)
“My recollection is that I went to play the ball and Billy Bremner dived over my leg. He threw himself up in the air and bent his legs as though he’d been kicked, but he hadn’t. I didn’t touch him. If he hadn’t picked his feet up, I would have kicked him because I wouldn’t have been able to get my foot out of the way. So, if he hadn’t dived, it would have been a foul. But he dived.”
EDDIE GRAY
“This was by far my worst performance at Wembley, and what made it doubly frustrating was the player marking me, Dick Malone, was a right-back against whom I had previously done well.”
THE DOUBLE SAVE
JIMMY MONTGOMERY
“I trained to make saves like that. It was all about trying to get up without using your hands. Your momentum takes you down and so you have to quickly push yourself up. That’s the way I worked in training. The other thing to say is that if you make a save and you stay down, you’ll never get a rebound. So the first thing for me if I was down was that I had to get up. That was always in my make-up. I never dived and stayed down.”
RON GUTHRIE
“For a split second, I thought, ‘He’s scored’, and then I thought, ‘No, he hasn’t’. I thought it had hit the stanchion at the back of the goal at first. I thought he couldn’t miss. I couldn’t believe it when the ball bounced out and the game continued.”
DENNIS TUEART
“It was a truly great save that Monty made from Peter Lorimer. Norman Hunter was stood near by and he just turned to me and said, ‘It’s your day now, Dennis’.”
THE FINAL WHISTLE
RON GUTHRIE
“I knew there wasn’t long to go for Arthur Cox was up and down on the bench. I kept saying to myself, ‘It must be time up, it must be time up’ and ‘Please blow your whistle’. When the whistle went, my mind just erupted inside. I couldn’t believe it. Ritchie Pitt was the first one I saw. He said to me, ‘We’ve won the Cup’.
BILLY HUGHES
“At the final whistle, Norman Hunter was the first one that greeted me. I collapsed and I was lying on my back and as I got up, he came over and he put his arm around me and said, ‘You deserved it, son’. I don’t think I would have been that gracious had we lost.”
DENNIS TUEART
“We deserved it. The balance of that team was perfect. We had height, mobility, a strong centre-forward, a creative midfield, wide men, a strong defence, an outstanding goalkeeper and a tremendous team spirit. People should never underestimate that team. The level of quality in that side stood the test of time.”
JIMMY MONTGOMERY
“It meant everything to me – being a local lad – to get to Wembley and receive an FA Cup winners’ medal. We won the Cup due to the camaraderie between the lads, from number one to number 12. It was never about him or him or him – it was always about us.”
* Some quotes taken from ‘Stokoe, Sunderland and 73: The Story of the Greatest FA Cup Final shock of all time’ by Lance Hardy
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