City’s last final with Chelsea? 5-4 defeat day after the derby!
FOR two clubs as big and successful as Manchester City and Chelsea, one might think that you do not have to go too far back to find the last time these modern football giants met in a cup final.
There have been two Community Shields, this season and in 2012, but unless you’re Jose Mourinho they don’t count. Not when you can make six subs.
Chelsea and City meet today in the Carabao Cup final, the first trophy of the season. For their last — and only — previous meeting in a final we must go back 33 years. March 23, 1986. A nine-goal extravaganza in front of more than 67,000 at Wembley.
The competition? The inaugural Full Members’ Cup. Remember that? Also later known as the Simod Cup or the snappily-titled Zenith Data Systems Cup. Chelsea beat City 5-4, having led 5-1, thanks to a hat-trick from David Speedie, the first at Wembley since Geoff Hurst in 1966, and two from Colin Lee.
City forward Mark Lillis thought he had scored a hat-trick of his own as he dragged his team back into contention with two headers and a penalty.
‘At the end, Speedie came up to me with the ball,’ says Lillis. ‘He said: “We’re going to have to cut this ball in half, Mark”. Then the referee came over and told me that my second had gone in off a defender. “You’re joking, ref,” I replied.’ The decision denied Lillis the fastest hat-trick in Wembley history: 84, 88, 89.
A brief history lesson: in May 1985, English clubs were banned from European competition in the wake of the Heysel Stadium disaster in which 39 fans were killed and 600 injured ahead of the European Cup final between Juventus and Liverpool, at whose door the blame was laid.
The Full Members’ Cup was one of the competitions created by the Football League in response.
‘It was hugely upsetting that our chances of playing in Europe was ruined by hooligans,’ says Pat Nevin, who set up three of Chelsea’s goals at Wembley.
The competition ran until 1992, open to clubs from the top two divisions, although the first instalment did not include the six clubs who would have qualified for Europe that season.
They had their own elite tournament. And then only five other top division clubs entered the Full Members’ Cup. The final was played on a Sunday after a full league programme. Chelsea had beaten Southampton while City had drawn with Manchester United.
A Manchester derby one day, a cup final the next. Imagine that.
‘It was important,’ says Lillis. ‘The old saying you play for the badge and the shirt. It was tough that we couldn’t play in Europe as I had worked my way through the leagues and been a blue since I was born. But we knew Wembley was at the end of it.’
How much those two clubs have changed over the next three decades. Billionaire owners have turned Chelsea and Man City into super powers.
‘No one could have known what would happen to these clubs,’ says Nevin. ‘It’s all about pumping the money in. If you ask me who will be the next [big] club, it could be anyone.’
CHELSEA (4-4-2): Francis; Wood, Rougvie, Mclaughlin, Pates, Nevin, Bumstead, Spackman, McAllister; Lee, Speedie. Subs (not used): Hazard, Dublin. MANCHESTER CITY (4-4-2): Nixon, Reid (Baker), Redmond, McCarthy, Power; Phillips (Simpson), Lillis, May, Wilson; Kinsey, McNab. Referee: A Saunders.