Book Review - Sky Blue Heroes by Steve Phelps

We get sent a few books to review here in the Attic and it's always a delight, even if we don't always find the time to review them all. One book in particular I was looking forward to getting my hands on was this - Sky Blue Heroes by Steve Phelps, author of many a quality book about my beloved Coventry City.

Naturally there's been lots written about our 87 FA Cup win, but what makes this different is it's not a story of that journey told as a narrative by a distant voice; this is a collation of copious interviews with the people who were there and went on that journey. That doesn't just mean the fans. This includes everyone from the management, players, club staff and even the people who wrote the Cup Final song, Go For It City!

Starting with interviews from the players, the book follows events of the FA Cup run match to match, combining memories with excerpts from the club programmes and papers of the time. As always with these things, it's the minutiae that really set the scene... transfer figures in the tens of thousand rather than the millions, club jaunts to Spain rather than Dubai etc, all reminiscent of the pre-Premiership days when the 3rd Round Football Focus special would always show a 4th Division player doing his normal job (usually a brick layer) to show the discrepancy between top and bottom flight.

The chronological nature of the book not only means that each interview is short (rather than a series of long interviews with each person), thereby giving it a nice, punchy pace, but also allows the tension and excitement to rise as time goes on and what started as just another cup run in a freezing January, builds with each match to a rising sense of belief that this might actually happen and finally the explosion of sheer joy when it bloody well did!

It's a cliché say that something is a must for any particular set of fans, but this is a book that every Sky Blue fan has to read. For those who were there or at least a fan at the time, it's a beautiful recreation of the time and given the multiple viewpoints, there's always something you can identify with. Moreover, for those too young to have been there, it's as close as you'll get to living through it and in these dark days of League One, reminds us what we once achieved by having the right people and the right mentality.

So, if you're a Cov fan, make sure this is on your Christmas list!

Sky Blue Heroes is available from Amazon here.

- Rich Johnson

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Ronnie Radford: Hereford Hero

The great thing about the FA Cup is that its exalted status hasn't come about solely because of the Final. The Final is merely the the cherry on the cake, the signature on the masterpiece. The reason that the words 'FA Cup' have become so venerable is because of the goals and the memories that are gathered each year, all the way from the first qualifying round to the conclusion at Wembley. Some goals add to the legend, whereas some become legendary in their own right.

If ever the dreams and the aspirations of everyone that's ever kicked a football were made manifest in a single moment, it must surely be the one that resulted in Ronnie Radford scoring against Newcastle United in 1972. Radford, a part-time player and a joiner by trade, had helped his Hereford United side earn a draw at St James' Park in the Third Round of the FA Cup in February that year. The replay became Hereford's own Cup Final - the culmination of a campaign that had begun in the Fourth Qualifying Round and now, in its seventh match, saw them play Newcastle United of the Football League First Division.

Hereford United were a Southern League side at the time, no match for the likes of Malcolm Macdonald, Frank Clark, Bobby Moncur and their ilk - or so it was thought. Ronnie Radford was just one of the white-shirted brigade for whom football was not a means of generating an income. It was a game, an engaging challenge for the mind and body that provided a release from the day job once a week, every Saturday.

What happened in that Third Round replay has cemented the name of Ronnie Radford into the foundations that today's FA Cup is built upon. His goal, as relentlessly accurate as an archer's arrow hitting the dead-centre of a bullseye, is rightly repeated and relished often and without apology. It is the goal every man Jack of us would've wanted to score, a thirty-yard bullet that crushed the spirit of Joe Harvey's men in an instant. It sent the game into extra time, whereupon Ricky George delivered his own fatal blow to finish off the Tynesiders.

It is a rare occasion when the simple actions of one man make him a local hero forever, but Ronnie Radford has managed to keep his feet on the ground ever since. Humble but grateful, he retains the air of a man who knows how lucky he was to let fly with that thunderbolt shot 43 years ago and rightly allows himself the beaming smile he earned that day whenever he sees it.

Evidence of Ronnie Radford's enduring humility can be found in a short film that's just been released which is well worth seeing. 'The Ballad of Ronnie Radford' catches up with the Hereford hero as he reminisces about that day in February 1972 and features music from the critically-acclaimed album 'Songs About Other People' by Harry Harris. All in all, it's a delightful reminder of why football can enrich your life with great memories and why the FA Cup itself is such a fine institution.



'Songs About Other People' is out now, and Harry Harris will be touring Ireland in June with fellow collaborator Anna McIvor, after headlining the final night of Home Farm Festival on the Folkroom Records stage.

The Ballad of Ronnie Radford

Directed by: Francis Newall & Matt Diegan
Produced by: Matt Diegan
All Music: Harry Harris
Grade: Steve Atkins
Sound Mix: Robin Clarke

http://www.harryharrismusic.com
http://www.moralhangover.co.uk

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FA Cup Memories Book

It's the Cup Final on Saturday...yes, the Cup Final...THE Cup Final! I don't need to add the 'FA' prefix of course...Or do I?  To those of a certain age, we all know what is meant by The Cup Final, but does that hold true so much now?

There's been much talk of the FA Cup being devalued in recent times. We've discussed it ourselves on our podcasts and covered it in posts and it could just be our own sense of nostalgia...we'll probably never know...

One thing we are certain of, however, is that 'in our day' (whenever that was), the FA Cup Final was something to cherish, something which occupied the whole day, with coverage starting around 3am (probably) and ending with the playing of the national anthem and closedown (maybe).

So what better way to relive those glory days than by diving into a book brimming with the recollections of those of a similar age? Time travel? Oh shut up!

Conveniently for both us and you, Matthew Eastley has created such a book - a series in fact, covering the 60s, 70s and now, with his latest release, "From Ricky Villa to Dave Beasant", the 80s!

My copy arrived last Friday and naturally I dived straight into '87. The chapters are comprised of fan memories and I can genuinely say it brought a tear to my eye, especially recalling the evening when we'd won, just hearing all the car horns and cheering across the city, even out in the suburbs as I was at the time. For anyone whose team won the cup during the decades covered, it's a must-read, but even for football fans in general, the sense of nostalgia will transport you right back to your childhood.

We spoke to Matt and asked what compelled him to start such a project...

I can remember precisely when we got our first colour television. It was Saturday 30 March 1974 and the first thing I watched was the Hanna-Barbera produced Josie and the Pussycats. I was seven years old and spent the entire day glued to this magic rectangle. Before acquiring the Bush-manufactured set, with its three clunky channel buttons, we’d had to go to our friends across the street to watch colour essential programmes like Top of the Pops or Jeux Sans Frontieres but now we had our own box. Yet, one more thing from that bright spring morning stays with me. It was my older sister coming into the room and saying: ‘Just think. Now you’ll be able to watch the Cup Final in colour, here.’

It was no coincidence that my sister had cited the Cup Final. It was the showpiece occasion of the year, an unmissable televised event. Deep in the recesses of my mind I had memories of watching the 1971 Cup Final in colour at some friends of my parents. I recall being spellbound by the green pitch below a glorious blue sky and the polychrome brilliance of red-shirted Liverpool against the yellow of Arsenal. I’d then watched the extraordinary 1973 Final between Sunderland and Leeds on a tiny portable black and white set at my grandparents but, come 1974 and the one-sided clash between Bill Shankly’s Liverpool and Joe Harvey’s Newcastle, our house was the meeting point. 
Throughout the 70s and 80s, FA Cup Final Day was, alongside Christmas Day, New Year’s Eve and Bonfire Night, one of the most important and exciting days of the year.
It didn’t really concern me who was playing, it was the occasion that mattered. And it wasn’t just football fans like me either. The FA Cup Final had all the trappings of a state occasion with royalty, marching bands and the national anthem. That meant it drew in people who would never dream of going to a live game or tuning in to Match of the Day, The Big Match or On the Ball.
We hummed along with ‘Abide With Me’ and smiled at pun-laden banners like ‘Osborne Takes the Biscuit’ 'Channon Strikes More Times Than British Leyland’ or 'The Name is Bonds: Billy Bonds."
Whether you were lucky enough to be there or watching at home, it was a yearly ritual that transcended football.I heard on countless occasions people say they did not like football but they always watched the FA Cup Final. My granddads both used to wear a suit on cup final day because it felt special, different and important.
As a football-obsessed lad, FA Cup Final Day was sheer nirvana for me. The moment Zorro or Champion the Wonder Horse finished around 11am and the TV coverage began, I was there. FA Cup Mastermind, It’s a Knockout, interviews from the team hotels or the coach were the norm and I loved every second. 
In the 70s, the matches themselves usually delivered as well with memorable victories by Sunderland, West Ham, Southampton and Ipswich and players like Ian Porterfield, Jim Montgomery, Alan Taylor, Bobby Stokes and Roger Osborne becoming household names. They, like the matches they played in, are indelibly printed on my brain.

I was moved to write about the FA Cup, and specifically the Final, because I was saddened and frustrated to see the gradual decline of a competition which was woven so integrally into our social and footballing fabric.
Despite valiant attempts in recent years to breathe life back into the competition, I believe irreparable damage was done, chiefly during the 1990s, when the competition was mismanaged, under-marketed and devalued.
It’s fair to say that the media landscape has changed dramatically over the last quarter of a century. The FA Cup Final enjoyed its heyday when live broadcasting was comparatively rare.Apart from the FA Cup Final, the only live football matches shown were the England v Scotland Home International clashes, World Cup games and the occasional match such as England’s showdown against Poland in October 1973, which required complex negotiations on behalf of the broadcasters to screen.

I believe the 1980s represented the last great decade of the competition and that the dramatic Wimbledon v Liverpool final of 1988 is the last great classic of that era.
There have been some excellent matches since of course but a number of factors had already conspired to diminish the competition – and particularly the final.
The establishment of the Premier League, in 1992, is of crucial importance.It brought with it unprecedented financial rewards. Live matches became the norm, accompanied by clever, intense marketing (which some might say equated to ludicrous hype), which helped establish the Premier League as the only show in town.Whereas in the 1970s we had, at most, two or three live matches during an entire season, by the 1990s, that number was regularly being shown in a single week.
It’s also important to say that, over the preceding decades, no team had been able to exert a stranglehold on the competition so we were able to enjoy a whole host of so-called smaller clubs competing and, in several cases, actually winning, at Wembley.

Sadly, that largely disappeared in the 1990s and 2000s and a predictable succession of winners – for me a series of uninteresting finals invariably involving Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool and Arsenal which all merge into one – did not help.
The competition began to lose its romance.Winning the cup final became a ‘nice-to-have’, not a ‘must-have’.

As Mike Collett says in his indispensable The Complete Record of the FA Cup, it is wrong to suggest there was ever some kind of ‘golden age’. The top teams of the day frequently did reach the FA Cup Final but there was a perception that the competition was more open and the victories of clubs like Sunderland, Coventry and Wimbledon prove that.

Of course, there have been victories by so-called, less fashionable clubs in the new millennium and I take absolutely nothing away from the achievements of the likes of Portsmouth and Wigan Athletic for winning the competition and teams like Millwall, Cardiff, Stoke and Hull for reaching the final.
For me, however, the gloss went from the final many years previously. It was unthinkable that I would ever miss the FA Cup Final and, for every match between 1971, when I was five, and 1996, when I was 30, I could tell you exactly where I was and who I was with.It gets more difficult after that because, to my great regret, to me the FA Cup Final is now just another game.

One last thing is that I have never been to the FA Cup Final. Like millions of youngsters I sometimes dreamed of scoring the winner at Wembley.I thought if players like Ian Porterfield, Alan Taylor, Bobby Stokes and Roger Osborne could do it, then so could I.
I could play a bit but it was never going to happen.The next best thing for me was to see my team (FA Cup winners in 1947) play in the final.That has not happened either and, realistically, does not look very likely..

So I started living the experience vicariously.

A mammoth and hugely enjoyable project started when I began talking to a Chelsea fan who had been at the classic 1970 final and replay. His eyes lit up as he remembered the time.He could remember what life was like, what he was wearing, what songs were in the charts (Bridge Over Troubled Water) and what was in the news (the Apollo 13 crisis). He could recall minor details of the day, getting to the ground, seemingly trivial incidents and snatches of conversation that were still fresh after more than 40 years.That fascinated me and I found myself searching for more memories.Over the last six years, I have encountered in the region of 700 football fans all over the globe who have attended FA Cup Finals since 1960 and they, like that Chelsea fan, can recall it as though it was yesterday.

The third and final book of this series is the 1980s and I hope you will enjoy an unashamedly nostalgic trip down memory lane to a time when the FA Cup Final was still the only show in town.

A big thank you to Matthew for sharing his story with us...

"From Ricky Villa to Dave Beasant" is out now, priced £14.99 from Pitch Publishing...

-- Rich Johnson

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Up For The Cup 1987

As it’s FA Cup quarter final weekend, I thought I’d turn the clock back 28 years to a time when you’d have been able to buy this superb piece of football memorabilia - the Up For The Cup 1987 wallchart.

From what I’ve been able to make out, this was the third annual edition of the wallchart (the first being published for the 1984-85 season). I remember discovering my first one in a local newsagents sometime around the mid-1980’s. When folded up, it looked like an ordinary football magazine when sat on a shelf alongside other publications, but further investigation uncovered the extra dimensions that lay within. Once unpacked and unfolded, a huge, colourful, wallchart lay before you along with sheets and sheets of thumbnail-sized stickers, each one featuring club badges for every team imaginable.

The wallchart was an invitation to indulge in and engage with the world’s oldest football competition. As each round of matches were played, your job was to adhere the appropriate stickers to the spaces provided and fill in the score and scorers with a pen. The Third Round results ran around the outside of the wallchart while subsequent rounds appeared in the middle ‘pitch’ section.

And let it be said right here and now - the ability to hold sheets and sheets of mini club badge stickers in your hand was the sort of thing that was liable to create a strange tingling sensation in your nether regions as a football-loving young teenager in the mid-1980s. Individual club badge stickers were not uncommon to Panini collectors, but owning so many in such great quantities - small though they were - was almost obscene. With an apparent surplus at your fingertips, it’s hardly surprising that thoughts would turn towards other places where they could be stuck. School exercise books, bedroom walls, the frame of your bicycle… why wait until the FA Cup Final when there were so many places to stick them?

With a potential five rounds to feature in, it’s understandable that each team had five stickers each. Even some non-league teams were lucky enough to have a few, although in this 1986-87 edition, there were plenty of blanks provided that you could scribble your own names on. As you can see on this wallchart I purchased on eBay a few years ago, you can see one child’s attempts to ensure that the mighty Caernarfon wasn’t going to be left out.

To liven the whole thing up, lots of colour photographs decorated the piece featuring the star players of the day. On this edition, we get to see a snowbound Nigel Clough playing with an orange Tango ball, Arsenal’s “new wonder boy” David Rocastle and Southampton’s Colin Clarke, who was on his way to scoring 20 league goals in his first season for The Saints.

The reverse side of the wallchart contained mostly statistical and narrative information split up into individual pages. There was a list of previous FA Cup Final results, the overall performance of different teams in previous competitions and the results from the previous FA Cup competition in 1986/87. For those seeking an insight into the life of a top player, Alan Hansen provided a potted history of his career heretofore, and an Editorial by someone at manufacturers Statmill spoke of the growing number of top players like Gary Lineker and Ian Rush leaving the English game.

Stealing the show, perhaps, was a competition to win two tickets to the 1986 Charity Shield match at Wembley. By answering three tricky questions, “you and your Dad or other adult” could go and see Liverpool and Everton battle it out again in the traditional season curtain-raiser. Call me fickle if you like, but I think I’d have been happier with the runner-up prize of a Subbuteo Club Edition set with two additional Cup Final teams and FA Cup trophy. Hell, I’d have even lived abroad temporarily to win the Overseas Prize of a Subbuteo World Cup set ‘with Cup Final teams and trophy’.

As mentioned before, this was one of several FA-approved Statmill wallcharts to be made. All of them followed the same basic format and repeated a lot of the material included, but at 87 centimetres by 62, this was a monster of a wallchart that offered fun galore thanks to all those wonderful stickers. There was even an Up For the World Cup edition released in time for the 1986 tournament that I also owned at the time, but I’ll get to that in a future article.

For now, just salute the majesty of this wallchart and accept the fact that if you saw something like this in the shops tomorrow, no matter what your age, you’d buy it like a shot. Don’t feel ashamed. It’s purely natural.

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The FA Cup Winner's Parade - Coventry 87

We're not quite done here in the Attic with FA Cup Week. Although the Final may be over and the victors handed the cup, there's still one piece of FA Cup folklore to be examined...the winner's open top bus parade!

To this end, rather than blather on about buses and all things topless (you wouldn't believe what google throws up for that!), I thought I'd just share with you my own pictures from the day after that glorious day back in 1987, when the mighty Sky Blues showed off their well deserved silverware on a slightly overcast and rainy Sunday...

So...here they are...apologies for the ropey pics, but they were taken by the 12 year old me on a 110 camera (look it up) in a rather large crowd.

Spurs fans, look away now ;-)

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The Unofficial FA Cup Championship

If any of you are aware of the Unofficial World Football Championships, you'll know about the simple unadulterated joy of considering a 'World Cup' where the reigning champions are decided on a match-to-match basis. You'll also be aware of the fact that seemingly any team can snatch the unofficial world title at any time, so long as they overcome the current holders at exactly their most vulnerable point. (If you're not sure what we're on about, visit the UFWC website and find out how the project works - it'll be time well spent.)

Anyway, it was with that working model in mind that we decided to do something similar. We wanted to find out who the Unofficial FA Cup Champions have been since the FA Cup first started in 1871, and who's won it most often.

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Clive - The 'Other' 1923 FA Cup Final Horse

The 1923 FA Cup Final is remembered for many things; it was the first final at the all new Empire Stadium at Wembley, 900 people were injured due to the over-capacity crowd, Bolton's second goal was given as, in the opinion of the ref, the ball had crossed the line and rebounded off a spectator (yeah, suck that one up, Hawkeye!). Finally, there was a Horse named Billie.

Crowd estimates for the day ranged between 150-300,000, despite the official figure being just over 126,000. Due to the large number of people, mounted police had to step in and at that point, Billie the grey horse (yes, he wasn't white afterall) took centre stage, herding the masses in a manner which would now be referred to as 'bossing it'.

Due to the prominent role he played, the final became known as the White Horse Final and in 2005, the footbridge near the new Wembley would be named after him after a public vote.

It could all have been so different, however!

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FA Cup Final Day - ITV-style (Part 2)

The second and final part of our look at the way ITV's World of Sport created a Cup Final Day experience for all of us watching in on the box.

1976
Duration: 12pm to 5.10pm

Everyone remembers the novelty of seeing the Cup Final teams in their chosen hotels before the big game, and in 1976 World of Sport made it their first port of call on the day. "Up-to-the-minute news on the fitness, mood and morale of the finalists" was what we were promised, but if anything we were probably more fascinated by the sight of both teams sitting around in their smart Admiral sweaters and freshly pressed slacks.

Fred Dinenage punctuated the day's coverage with 'Man In The Crowd' (i.e. interviews with fans and celebrities) while Ed Stewart returned for a third successive year with 'Football Crazy.' On this occasion, he took Martin Buchan and Peter 'Rodreegs' Rodrigues to a local school to meet young fans of Man United and Southampton rather than enlist the help of ne'er-do-wells like Gary Glitter. No bad thing either, if you ask us.

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Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.14 - FA Cup Special

Not long to go now until FA Cup Final Day, so let's look back to 1978 when two rather fine tracksuit tops graced the biggest game in the English football calendar.

The scene was Wembley, the teams were Ipswich Town and Arsenal. Terry Neill and Bobby Robson emerged from the tunnel into the warm May sunshine and shortly after we got our first sight of the 22 players that would start the 1978 FA Cup Final.

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FA Cup Final Programmes (1946-2012)

Continuing FA Cup Final Week here at The Football Attic, we present a video montage showing the front covers of all of the FA Cup Final match-day programmes from 1946 onwards.

Pick your favourites, pick your worst, then tell us what they are - we look forward to hearing from you!

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FA Cup Final Day - ITV-style (Part 1)

With just seven days to go until the 2013 FA Cup Final, we begin a week-long series of FA Cup-themed articles here on The Football Attic..

If you heard our recent podcast called 'FA Cup Memories', you'll know that many people (ourselves included) still fondly remember the classic Cup Final Day coverage on TV.

As a child growing up in the UK, one tends to recall ITV and BBC starting their build-up to the big event well before lunchtime. Special features would be shown involving the Cup Final players, celebrities and all manner of novelty fare. This was, after all, the biggest game of the domestic season and the two main UK TV channels did all they could to make sure you tuned in to them for Cup Final Day.

While the BBC's coverage was somewhat earnest and straight-laced, ITV allowed itself to have a bit more fun in its presentation of the big event. To that end, let's remind ourselves of how World of Sport did 'FA Cup Final Day' down the years, starting here with Part 1...

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Retro Random Video: Man United NOT appearing on Top of the Pops

We've seen it so often before, the sight of a football team appearing on Top of the Pops, singing (or rather 'miming') badly to their latest chart hit (if indeed 'hit' is the word we're looking for there).

But in 1983 there was one occasion when a football team were due to appear in the BBC studios to perform their song but didn't. This was because Manchester United, the team in question, were rendered unavailable on account of their participation in the 1983 FA Cup Final replay at Wembley against Brighton & Hove Albion.

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Attic Podcast 7 - FA Cup Memories

As it's nearly time for another FA Cup Final, we thought we'd wander down memory lane and ramble all about our own FA Cup memories from hours of match build up to why it's all gone wrong nowadays!

Listen to Rich go for an hour without really mentioning Coventry in 87 or Sutton Utd in 89...useless!

Subscribe on iTunes or download here

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Chris O's Favourite 5... FA Cup Finals

As it's FA Cup Third Round day, I thought I'd take a slow walk down memory lane to remind myself of my favourite five Finals from years gone by.

1. West Ham v Liverpool (2006)

“Surely the best Cup Final of modern times” according to BBC commentator John Motson and even now, some six-and-a-half years later, it’s difficult to disagree with him.

For any fan of a losing finalist in any competition, it’s some consolation at least when your team gives a good account of itself, and for me, West Ham certainly did that in 2006. Going 2-0 up through a Jamie Carragher own goal and a Dean Ashton toe-poke from close range, West Ham took the game to Liverpool but they hadn’t accounted for a one-man colossus in red called Steven Gerrard.

The Merseyside club clawed their way back to 2-2 thanks to a Djibril Cissé volley and a Gerrard thunderbolt, but even after Paul Konchesky’s speculative cross had put West Ham back in front at 3-2, Liverpool still weren’t prepared to accept defeat. A second incredible strike by the England captain ensured the game was tied at 3-3 going into injury time, and with the resulting penalty shoot-out swinging in favour of The Reds, this was not to be West Ham’s day.

And what of my feelings after the game?  Not disappointed really, no. Pride – that was my predominant emotion. Pride that my favourite club had played its part in a memorable Final and earned the respect of many neutrals watching from afar. You can’t ask for much more than that, can you?

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Radio Times: 1971 FA Cup Final preview

For many people, the iconic image of the 1971 FA Cup Final is that of Charlie George slamming the ball past Ray Clemence in the Liverpool goal before celebrating horizontally on the Wembley turf. All that was still to come when the Radio Times was published for the week of 8-14 May 1971, but the big day was still looked forward to with the traditional customary air of excitement and anticipation.

On the front cover, Steve Heighway and John Radford added a splash of colour (the latter cut out and superimposed as if running in a trench) while the headline informed us that all the action from Wembley would be 'Live on Grandstand' and BBC Radio 2.

And what a schedule lay in store for us on BBC1. Cup Final Grandstand began at 11.45am (following The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?) and was introduced by David Coleman 'direct from Wembley.' Providing capable punditry and gobbits of relevant anecdotage were Manchester City manager Joe Mercer, Leeds United manager Don Revie and Manchester United captain Bobby Charlton.

'Who'll win the Cup?'
Arsenal, but we didn't
know it yet...

The opening sequence of the programme was referred to as 'The Wembley Scene' and featured Frank Bough and Barry Davies profiling the two sets of players from their respective team headquarters (typically a hotel in Borehamwood or some such). After that at 12.30, it was time to meet 'The Cup Final Managers' where Bertie Mee and Bill Shankly conveyed their hopes and concerns ahead of kick-off.

The 'Goal of the Season' was announced at 12.45 along with the lucky competition winner who scribbled it down on his/her postcard. A £300 cheque was the prize for choosing Ernie Hunt's donkey kick volley in correspondence with Grandstand's panel of experts - a staggering amount that in today's money is equivalent to more than £3,600.

At 12.55 it was time for 'It's a Cup Final Knockout' featuring two teams representing Arsenal and Liverpool, led by disc jockey Pete Murray and actor Anthony Booth respectively. The show was hosted by David Vine who, let it be remembered, was the presenter in the early days of It's A Knockout before Stuart Hall made the programme his own.

By 2.25, kick-off was within tantalising reach and all the pre-match protocol was in full swing. The Band of the Coldstream Guards were doing their thing, the crowd was in full voice and the Duke of Kent was busy shaking the hands of the players out on the pitch. In the blink of an eye, the match would be played, won and reflected upon as David Coleman rounded up the best of the action and interviewed the key players - all in time for tea.

'Are goalkeepers crazy?' Who better
to provide an answer than Bob
Wilson...

Towards the back of this issue of the Radio Times, there's a lengthy interview with both goalkeepers - Bob Wilson for Arsenal and Ray Clemence for Liverpool. Wilson comes across as a man who thought about every  moment of every possible game; a worrier to some extent, but with good reason. He was a man that clearly took his job of goalkeeper seriously and his analysis of the team he faced in the Final was detailed and thorough.

Clemence, by contrast, was younger and seemed merely happy with his achievement of breaking through the talented ranks at Anfield to earn a regular spot in the team. He refers to his close friendship with Larry Lloyd and their scrupulous adherence to the same pre-match rituals ("We always order breakfast at exactly the same time, Larry always gets up, makes the tea and brings in the papers... Then we go out for a ten-minute walk.")

Taking superstition to the extreme, Clemence was happily cosseted in his own footballing world, however his comments about Charlie George bordered on the flippant: "...From what you see on television, he seems to be a bit erratic. He must have been booked two or three times and he hasn't played for all of the season. I've never faced his shooting, but he certainly hit that goal against Newcastle pretty well, didn't he?" Probably best to keep that in mind for the Final, Ray...

Of course the main purpose of the Radio Times was (and still is) to inform us of all the top programmes appearing on BBC TV during the coming week. In this issue you might have singled out The Andy Williams Show and The Good Old Days as special highlights to look forward to, or perhaps an attempt at brand diversification in the form of A Question of News. Presented by Richard Baker, this was a short-lived attempt at replicating the success of A Question of Sport which, at that point, had been running for just over a year.

Green Cross Code: Stop,
Look, Listen, Think.

Elsewhere, there was the chance to catch up on England's Euro '72 campaign with highlights of the match against Malta in Sportsnight, while on Radio 1 there were the audible delights of Tony Blackburn, Terry Wogan and Anne Nightingale to pass the time away.

Finally, to round off this issue, there's the customary saunter through the many pages of adverts, and what better way to teach our kids road safety skills than with a relatively new campaign called 'The Green Cross Code'. Dave Prowse in a green-and-white superhero suit was still four years away at this point, but like Gerry Francis looking from side to side in all his interviews, there was more than one way to tell kids how to cross the road.

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FA Cup Final Programme, 1980

A quick skim through the Official Souvenir Programme of the 1980 FA Cup Final shows that it was a mixed bag of trivia, some of it dry, some of it brilliantly evocative.

Inside, we first see the Timetable and Programme of Events for May 10th 1980. The running order for the biggest afternoon in English football had a familiar feel; marching regimental bands at 1.10pm, the marching band of Kansas State University at 1.35, more from the regimental bands of the Guards' Division at 2.30 and again at half time, Abide With Me at 2.45 and The Duke of Duchess of Kent shaking hands with the players at 2.50. So far, so regimented.

On page 5, we get a word from Ted Croker, FA Secretary, who speaks of the growing trend for Second Division clubs to do well in the FA Cup Final (Sunderland and Southampton being recent examples at the time). This was a good omen for West Ham although, as Croker said, Arsenal "seemed to have reserved a permanent place at Wembley. This will be the club's third Wembley Final in succession – a record…" He signed off by telling readers that the Final would "be seen on TV in over 60 countries" and by hundreds of millions of people. It would probably have been more were it not for all those regimental marching bands showing up every five minutes.

Further inside the programme, there are detailed club profiles on Arsenal and West Ham along with full colour pictures of the two teams, in case you'd forgotten what they looked like. Furthermore, there are double-page profiles of the two teams to give some detail on the playing staff in each case. We're told that "in August 1977, [Pat Jennings] joined Arsenal from neighbours Tottenham Hotspur. Would Spurs have let him go for £45,000 if they had known he would play for their greatest rivals at Wembley in 1978, 1979 and 1980?" Probably not, but there again if my aunt had balls, would she be my uncle? The answer to both questions is likely to be the same.

The FA Cup Final programme of 1980 serves as much as a condensed reference book as any kind of souvenir. There are pages devoted to previous Cup Final results, Cup Facts ('compiled by Jack Rollin') and Goals Galore ('Scoring feats from past FA Cup Finals') but aside from the statistics and the plentiful colour action photos of both teams, the real charm can found in the filler material. Here, we get a perfect snapshot of the era through the adverts dotted willy-nilly throughout.

There's one for the Sunday Mirror featuring "Kevin Keegan of England and Hamburg – soon Southampton" who was writing a column for the weekend tabloid at the time. Keegan also cropped up in a small advert for Mitre Sports, alongside another for Adidas bearing a tiny caption telling us that Umbro International (Footwear) Ltd were "the sole UK distributors of Adidas products." Quite a sporting gesture on the part of the future England kit suppliers in more ways than one.

Elsewhere, there's an advert for the Victor range of men's toiletries - a useful reference for anyone wondering whether Brut 33 was the low point in male grooming products at the start of the 1980's. Another advertises Skol, surely as ubiquitous in pubs back then as pictures of topless models on Big D peanut dispensers and a predilection for cirrhosis of the liver and lung cancer among the regulars.

But for those wanting a lasting memory of a wonderful day at the FA Cup Final, page 48 of the programme was where it was all happening. There it was possible to choose your commemorative gift to remind you of the big day from a range of Wembley branded products. Blue and white wrist band? Certainly – that'll be 90p. How about a "slide card" as a pocket size-record of all FA Cup Final matches since 1872? No problem – 55p.

And if the 'Italian-made sports bag' didn't take your fancy (despite being made from 'durable nylon - £4.99') there was always the opposite page featuring 8mm soccer home movies. Two hundred feet of celluloid bliss – some even with sound – from just £8.30. What more could a football fan want? Perhaps a ticket to the upcoming Harlem Globetrotters game, but for that you'd need to contact the Wembley Box Office.

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