Crystal Palace’s last appearance in an FA Cup final – and their first 90-minute match at Wembley – came as English football was beginning to change radically
1990 was a pivotal year for English football. Attendances at league matches had reached a post-war low in the late 1980s with fewer than 17m watching the four divisions. The top flight Division One attracted only 7.8m in 1989 – about half the number of seats filled at matches this season. 1990 was the year that the game began to restore its battered image from the dismal and destructive manner in which it was portrayed throughout the 1980s. Italia 90 was a godsend to a domestic game that was desperate for the smallest traces of hope against a backdrop of endless barrages of criticism from all quarters.
Bobby Robson’s gallant World Cup semi-finalists raised the spirits and, through the undeniable talent and infectious enthusiasm of chief protagonist Paul Gascoigne, England captured the lost hearts of a nation that had fallen out of love with its national game. 1990 was also a key year for my club, Crystal Palace. A few months before Gazza’s tearful torment in Turin there were a couple of matches that rejuvenated spirits, reminding us of how uplifting the game could be and giving a whole generation of Palace fans an opportunity to grab some much sought-after glory.
Palace fans had only dreamed fancifully that one day we might get to see our team at Wembley. The only chance we had before was in 1988, when attending the Football League Centenary Tournament held to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the founding of the league. It was a bizarre occasion involving 16 clubs playing at Wembley on the same day in a series of 40-minute matches. As this looked like being the only chance we had of seeing our club at the national stadium, a few thousand Palace fans went along but we were left a little nonplussed and dissatisfied. Our Wembley debut ended as quickly as it started with a disappointing goalless draw with Sheffield Wednesday and, just like England in 1990, being knocked out on penalties.
If that was it, then it was a particularly underwhelming experience and we returned crestfallen to dawdling along in the midriff of Division Two as we had done for several years under Steve Coppell’s management. But in 1989 Palace grasped the lifeline offered by the play-offs to overcome Blackburn Rovers in the two-legged final to gain promotion to the top tier and our latest tilt at becoming an established Division One side.
A season of consolidation was called for and by Christmas a mid-table position offered some comfort, but four consecutive losses in January left Palace teetering only two points above the relegation zone with onlyManchester United in between them and 18th-placed Millwall. The slump was arrested in February and by the end of March a nine-point gap was sufficient security to ease any relegation fears. It was time to concentrate on the FA Cup. The draw had been kind in the early rounds with home ties against lower league opposition – Portsmouth, Huddersfield and Rochdale all succumbing at Selhurst Park to set up a quarter-final against the lowest ranked club and the only Fourth Division side left, Cambridge United.
The steady, unspectacular nature of Palace’s progress was continued at the Abbey Stadium when a mishit Geoff Thomas shot sneaked its way into the Cambridge net to decide the outcome of a largely forgettable match. My abiding memory of the day was of the stunning sunset and the appropriately colourful skyline of red and blue that accompanied us as we drove back to London with the club’s secondFA Cup semi-final in the offing. Was fate finally showing us the way to Wembley?
Those idle thoughts were soon banished when we were drawn against Liverpoolin the semi-finals. Aside from the fact that they were romping to another title (their third in five years), they were also blessed with a glittering array of talent, from the silky John Barnes to the slippery Peter Beardsley, and from the predatory Ian Rush to the unflappable Alan Hansen. And then there was the trauma of Palace’s trip to Anfield earlier in the season. The complete shellacking received that night was still fresh in the consciousness of all the players and fans. In the build-up to the semi-final Coppell described our opposition as “magnificent” and ourselves as “the underdogs, no doubt about that”. This may well have been an astute piece of reverse psychology but on recent evidence it was just the plain old truth.
A midday kick-off at Villa Park and the impending sense of doom was not helped by a raging hangover on the early morning drive to Birmingham. It was hot and sweaty in the Holte End and, when Rush scored the opening goal with all the nonchalance of somebody posting a letter on a Saturday morning, there was a feeling of inevitability about the match. The game was going according to everybody’s expectations as Liverpool strolled in the early afternoon sunshine and, after talking that early lead they did not over-extend themselves unduly, almost through a sense of boredom at their dominance. The half-time talk among Palace fans was less of getting back on terms but more gallows humour in speculating that we should at least be able to prevent them from scoring another eight in the second half thus avoiding a repetition of September’s 9-0 mauling.
This was the first time that both FA Cup semi-finals were televised live and in the BBC studio Bob Wilson and Ray Wilkins were busy burying any chance of a Palace revival, confidently predicting a comfortable victory for the Reds and a probable Double in the offing. They were interrupted from their safe assumptions as the cameras homed in on the one and only Malcolm Allison, who was down in the tunnel. Big Mal was bullish as ever and sensed a recovery nobody else could detect, saying that “Palace were physically stronger whilst Liverpool were technically better” and he urging them to “gamble a bit more and get forward”.
No sooner had the second half kicked off than the Palace right-back John Pemberton decided to follow Allison’s advice by bombing down the touchline as if being pursued by an aggressive bear while skinning the Liverpool left with an extraordinary burst of pace. His subsequent cross pinged around the penalty area like an oversized game of pinball until it came to Mark Bright, who gleefully smashed the ball past a bemused Bruce Grobbelaar. The fans went berserk; it was just an equaliser but it felt like a massive moment. That air of invincibility had been punctured.
Incredulity soon followed when another bout of pinball led to Gary O’Reilly putting us 2-1 up. This was O’Reilly’s first ever goal for the club, his second and last would follow a few weeks later. With only 10 minutes left Liverpool struck twice in the space of a few minutes to restore order. Just as we were consoling ourselves about restoring pride and giving Liverpool a run for their money, with a minute to go, a third session of pinball ended in Andy Gray nodding in an equaliser.
At full time there was just chance to draw breath and then extra time passed by in a giddy blur with most Palace fans gleefully accepting the honourable draw and a replay. Then, with a few minutes remaining, a corner was flicked on at the near post by Andy Thorn and Alan Pardew unceremoniously bundled it in from a few yards. We were almost too incredulous and too exhausted to celebrate but we gave it a go and the Holte End was again a mass of bodies engulfed in delirium. It was fitting that every Palace goal that day was scored at the end where the majority of the fans were assembled, allowing for intimate celebrations with the players. As scruffy and unglamorous as all the others that day, it is the goal that forged Pardew’s reputation as a club legend.
Liverpool were visibly shell-shocked and the fallibility exposed that day saw the first cracks appear in the grip they had held over English football over the previous two decades. 1990 was the last time they won the league title so this could be viewed as their watershed moment. The team that was set to replace them as the dominant force was waiting for Palace in the final after Alex Ferguson’s Manchester United only just disposed over Second Division Oldham after a replay. For Coppell it was the perfect storm, as he was born in Liverpool and had gone on to be an integral member of the United side for almost 10 years as well as an established England international until injury curtailed his career.
The month or so between the semi-final and the final was a mixture of disbelief and pleasure, as we became the centre of attention after the 4-3 victory at Villa Park. The sense of being centre-stage was unusual for Palace and provided a taste of what we had been missing all these years. Rather than being ridiculed, or worse ignored, we felt a sense of importance. We were at the apex of the game and that overriding feeling of having arrived would be the lasting legacy despite a series of relegations, financial meltdowns and narrow escapes in subsequent years.
The final did not disappoint as that man O’Reilly made his presence felt just once more with a header that looped over a flailing Jim Leighton and past a despairing Steve Bruce. Surely O’Reilly must be the only player to have scored for his club in both FA Cup semi-final and final and in no other matches. But United scored either side of half-time through Bryan Robson and Mark Hughes, giving Coppell the cue to take a gamble on Ian Wright. Wright had suffered two serious shin injuries that season and had not played for months so he could have been forgiven for being a tad rusty.
His arrival lifted the fans and he made light of his time away by dancing through the United defence with pretty much his first touch and slotting the ball home to make it 2-2 and take the game into extra time. The resilience that had stood us in good stead during the semi-final was now in full flow. When Wright converted John Salako’s cross at the far post in the first half of added time we dared to imagine that we were there. Considering the twists and turns of the last two matches it should not have been any great surprise when Mark Hughes scored again with eight minutes remaining to equalise.
It was disappointing to have been so close but it was not half as disappointing as the replay, which was a dour, physical battle decided by a solitary Lee Martin goal. And those yellow and black stripes did not suit us at all. Ferguson’s decision to replace Leighton with Les Sealey was harsh but fair, although Palace never posed the same threat as the original game. While it was a tame way for this FA Cup adventure to peter out, it could not detract from those two thrilling matches that put Crystal Palace on the map. The only redeeming feature of the replay was that I took my fiancée to her first ever football match. She relished the occasion, if not the match, and that was the point at which I realised that 1990 truly was the pivotal year.
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