In that endeavour we were hugely helped by the Stretford End. There were times when we laid pressure on Real’s goal, when we had broken down one of their moves and were pouring in on their goal, when I thought to myself, ‘How did we get here? Did the Stretford End just suck the ball down to this end?’ The crowd had certainly helped to create a surge of tremendous desire to show Real that we could play at their level, and that they were sure to be seeing quite a bit more of us in the years ahead.
As we came out of the shower and began to dress, Eddie Colman was the young philosopher. ‘Well, boys, we’ve had a hell of a ride,’ he announced.
It said much about the instant hold Europe had taken on the imagination of the team that we had a strong sense that in some ways the season was over, at least the best of it, despite the fact that in ten days’ time United – and this would once more include me – had the chance to land the first league and cup Double of the century.
Five days before the second Real game we had collected a second straight First Division title, with three games to spare, and would finish up six points ahead of Spurs. Now only Aston Villa, a mediocre team who would finish tenth in the league and twenty-one points behind us, could deny us our assignment with history.
When I had been picked to play in the semi-final against Birmingham City my friends Tommy Taylor and David Pegg had hammered home a hard lesson. They told me that it was the one game in which, beyond any question, you had to be prepared to run hard right up to the final whistle. ‘This is the game no one wants to lose,’ Tommy said. ‘You have come a long way, and it would be terrible if you failed at the final hurdle before Wembley.’
I had quickly learned the value of their advice. Birmingham didn’t have our skills, but they had some formidable players: Gil Merrick in goal, right back Jeff Hall, and Trevor Smith, the big centre half. They had all played for England and their whole team carried the conviction that it was just too late in the day to surrender all that had been achieved on the long, tough road to the cup.
It was the biggest game I had ever played in, and though Birmingham, who had a reputation for kicking, seemed to mellow a little in the spotlight of Hillsborough, they were running quite as hard as my team-mates had predicted. As the game raced along, I thought, ‘It’s exactly how they described it. There is just no easy way of winning.’ You have to concentrate every minute, you have to think and, most of all, you have to run. It was a lesson I would never forget when I prepared for a cup game, even against the least considered of non-league opposition.
The first thing you had to do was make sure you ran every bit as much as they did. If you did this, the fact that you were better players had to be decisive. Against Birmingham, we got into our stride very quickly, and when Johnny Berry wriggled through to open the scoring in the twelfth minute it meant that our opponents had to open up the game, which immediately made them vulnerable to our greater attacking resources.
In another minute we were two ahead when David Pegg reinforced his pre-match theory with fine action. He outstripped the Birmingham cover and delivered a perfect cross for me to increase the lead. This meant there was only one way we could lose, and that would be to assume the match was already over. Birmingham never gave up, not even in the last minutes when it was clear enough to everybody else that they would not be returning to Wembley.
After all this, how could a teenaged footballer – I would not be twenty for another six months – feel that a Wembley cup final might be tinged with anti-climax? No doubt the only reason could be that the spell of Europe, the yearning to be playing instead in the great final that would now see Real triumph over Italy’s Fiorentina, was still so powerful. The Villa game, and the possibility of the historic Double that would have reflected the development of the team so perfectly, was maybe no longer the great aim it should have been. One moment we had the whole football world at our feet. The next, that world had been scaled down.
The process was completed when Villa’s Northern Irish international left winger Peter McParland crashed into our goalkeeper Ray Wood after just six minutes. This was a regular challenge in those days, but Ray’s cheekbone was fractured and Jackie Blanchflower was given the jersey. It wrecked our plans to play composed and flowing football. Instead of dominating the game, on Wembley’s strength-sapping surface, we were chasing an extra man, and maybe also were feeling the weight of expectation. Courageously, Ray returned to supply a nuisance value on the wing – the latest of a long list of Wembley’s gallant walking wounded in those days before substitutes. Blanchflower performed well in the emergency role – it was one that I managed to avoid throughout my career – but he was powerless when
