Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Hull City 1 Chelsea 3 from 1966



This weekend the papers were full of tales that Didier Drogba had stopped his Chelsea team mates in the tunnel before the start of the second half at Goodison Park last Saturday and given his own team talk.

Chelsea legend has it that Terry Venables would do this regularly in the 1960s. So much so that Tommy Docherty grew tired of having his orders countermanded and sold Venables to Spurs, buying my boyhood hero Charlie Cooke to be the team's playmaker in his place.

This video of an FA Cup quarter final replay from 1966 shows Venables still at Stamford Bridge and paired in midfield with another notable future manager, George Graham. Around them you will find Chelsea legends like Peter Bonetti, Chopper Harris, Bobby Tambling and Peter Osgood.

Osgood suffered a broken leg later that year and some observers will tell you that, as a result, he never quite became the great that he threatened to be. Certainly, he looks pretty special for a 19-year-old here.

Hull City were in the old third division in those days, and this quarter final replay was an important date in the club's history. On BBC Memoryshare a young Hull fan recalls the day:
Me and my mate of the time Pete Townend went off to see that game. As we approached the North stand entrances you could see thousands of people snaking back from each of the turnstiles and we wondered if we would ever get in. Eventually we did but for the first 15minutes we never saw a ball kicked as we paced up and down trying to find away in through the vast crowd on the terraces. 
Suddenly a man shouted to us both to go to him with that he lifted me up above his head and shouted lads coming over in turn we were passed right down to the gravel track that surrounded the pitch and sat just to the left of the goal at the north stand end the nearest i had ever been to the hallowed turf..

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