Chances are, if you picked up a U.K. newspaper or eavesdropped on any bar room or school playground conversation as the first weekend of May 1975 approached, the likelihood is the topic would have centred upon one of two British capital cities.
Generating a level of teenage frenzy not witnessed since the heyday of ‘Beatlemania’ eleven years before, – certainly not from a home-grown pop act – the Bay City Rollers, native to Edinburgh, were enjoying colossal adoration from a legion of adoring female fans, (my late sister, bless her, being one), whose allegiance was expressed by wearing tartan-trimmed clothing similar to that worn by the group.
The Rollers seemingly unstoppable momentum was underlined by their current hit ‘Bye Bye Baby’ (a reworking of a 1965 success by The Four Seasons), entering its sixth week at number one on the U.K. singles chart.
For those not especially gripped by how the Bay City Rollers had climbed to such an exalted plateau in the pop world, attention was focused 400 miles south, Wembley Stadium playing host to the first all-London FA Cup Final for eight years, but only the second in the 94 year history of the competition.
In 1967, in what had been dubbed the ‘Cockney Cup Final’ Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea both made the short jaunt to the borough of Brent, upon which Spurs returned to White Hart Lane with the trophy.
But now at the mid-point of the 1970s, it was West Ham United, on the back of a wildly erratic first division campaign taking on mid-table Division Two merchants Fulham – who even in a decade when Sunderland had already won the cup from the second tier, were the most unlikely finalists in a generation.
Such were the fundamentals. Yet the overriding intrigue through three weeks of sustained build-up to the 1975 FA Cup Final centred upon 1966 England World Cup winning captain Bobby Moore, a Fulham player for the previous thirteen months, facing the club with whom he was most identified – this at a venue where Moore had enjoyed notable triumphs in the claret and blue of West Ham and even more significantly the national team.
In three consecutive mid-60s seasons, skipper Moore had led victorious team-mates to the Royal Box, leading a Hammers ensemble in collecting the FA Cup in 1964, the European Cup Winners’ Cup in 1965 – the hat-trick completed 12 months later on lifting the Jules Rimet trophy when England became champions of the world.
His sixteen-year, 544 match West Ham career had ended with a move to Craven Cottage in March 1974. While Fulham had failed in pulling up many trees as a week-to-week second division entity in the subsequent time, as the 1974-75 FA Cup campaign unfolded (painstakingly in their case due to swathe of third and fourth round replays, the Craven Cottage side playing seven ties just to reach round five), hope among the wider football began to grow that Moore, still the most revered defender in the domestic game, would receive a Wembley swansong to his career.
Romantic notions of this involving West Ham began to grow when the semi-final draw kept them apart, coming to pass when each won through to the final.
Whether based on their picturesque Thames-side home just along from Putney Bridge, the fact war-time and music hall comedian Tommy Trinder was chairman of the club or acclaim for Johnny Haynes, one of the most gifted English footballers of the post-war era (World Cup winner George Cohen being on the books for 15 years also helped), Fulham had never been short on affection from within the game, something their current guise only served to endorse.
Aside from the reverence and respect afforded to Moore, veteran captain and midfield lynchpin Alan Mullery had begun his professional career at Craven Cottage, then moved to Spurs where cup winners medals and England caps ensued before making an early-70s return to SW6.
Indeed, few doubted his evergreen form made him a standout performer in a generally modest Fulham side paddling around in calm second division waters, but eyebrows were still raised when in the aftermath of their FA Cup semi-final replay success against Birmingham City, Mullery had been named ‘Football of the Year’ by the Football Writers Association.
True, 1974-75 had been an unfathomable season on several levels, but even then Mullery being the choice came from a strange place, particularly when Tony Currie had been in sparkling form for Sheffield United. Likewise Alan Hudson at Stoke City, whose magnificent display for England in a recent Wembley victory over World Champions West Germany could have clinched the deal on its own.
But if the old adage of good things happening to good people was suddenly occurring in the football, what with Moore being in the ranks and Mullery winning his accolade, Craven Cottage had another string to its bow of bonhomie. This in the form of genial, elder-statesman manager Alec Stock.
Like the amiable, admired figure Bobby Robson would represent to future generations – ‘Sir Bobby‘ as he became, having been a player and manager of Fulham – Stock, 58 at the time of the 1975 FA Cup Final, believed the game should be played with decency and deportment, conviction but not cynicism.
Yet in terms of delivering an against-the-odds cup triumph, Fulham literally and metaphorically speaking could not have had a better man at the helm. In 1949 as player-manager of Yeovil Town, Stock guided the non-league outfit to round five of the FA Cup, a run that that included a shock fourth round success against first division Sunderland. In March 1967 he steered third division QPR to victory over holders West Bromwich Albion in the first Wembley League Cup Final, Rangers, on the back of successive promotions, a Division One club a little over 12 months later.
Through the 1974-75 season, his third in charge at Craven Cottage, Stock had not only masterminded FA Cup triumphs over top flight opposition in Everton, Carlisle United and Birmingham, but during the early weeks of the campaign Fulham had visited Molineux and ousted holders Wolves from the League Cup – their reward being a third round London derby against visiting West Ham.
Almost 30,000 crammed into Craven Cottage to see Moore cross swords with his former team-mates, one of whom, England international Trevor Brooking, gave the visitors a first half lead. But after the break efforts from Mullery and Alan Slough enabled Fulham to progress (they would lose at Newcastle in the next round), by the odd goal in three – the thought not crossing the mind of anyone on Tuesday 8 October 1974 that seven months later the same two sides would be contesting the FA Cup Final.
At the time of their League Cup exit in South West London, West Ham were recovering from an atrocious start to the season that resulted in The Hammers dropping to bottom of Division One after losing at Spurs on September 14, this 2-1 defeat their fifth reversal in seven games.
Now under the stewardship of John Lyall, promoted to take charge of team affairs in the close season with long-serving Ron Greenwood now in the role of general manager, the loss at Craven Cottage came amidst a marked upturn in fortunes that had produced four wins and a draw from the last five league outings.
This improvement would be maintained to such an extent that of their 17 league games leading up to Boxing Day, West Ham had lost only one and were not just holding down fifth place (one point off top spot), but were rated as genuine championship contenders.
Their consistency, however, was packed away with the Christmas decorations, recording only three league victories between turn of the year and the last day, one of which was a final game win over Arsenal.
As title talk receded with the slide into mid-table (The Hammers eventually finishing 13th with 39 points, 28 of which – two for a win – had been accrued by Boxing Day), progress continued to be made in the FA Cup. After the third round victory at second division Southampton, by a strange twist of fate the next two winners of the FA Cup, hard work was made of overcoming Division Two outfit Swindon Town in round four, The Hammers then working commendably hard in ousting London rivals QPR and Arsenal.
Indeed, the quarter-final triumph over The Gunners on a quagmire Highbury pitch served notice West Ham might just be onto something when it came mounting a concerted cup bid. Goalkeeper Mervyn Day and central defender Kevin Lock produced the level of excellence that had prompted expectation of England caps 12 months before, while young striker Alan Taylor, bought from fourth division Rochdale for £40,000 four months earlier, had two significant touches and scored with both.
The twenty-year-old front man repeated the feat with a semi-final replay brace against Ipswich Town as The Hammers won through to their first FA Cup Final since Moore led them to victory 11 years before.
Those long-ago, halcyon times of a 1970s FA Cup Final day were an era when (two) television channels catered for the Wembley occasion rather than the latter-day opposite. In great anticipation of the one match guaranteed to be broadcast live through the course of a season, the football-smitten populace would rarely move from in front of their screens during the preceding hours.
Through a plethora of build-up features, few questioned the necessity of knowing which players from the opposing sides had the superstition of being last out of the dressing room on taking the field, or whose taste in clothes was a source of amusement ‘to the lads.’
In regard to the West Ham line-up for the 1975 FA Cup Final, the visual pen-pictures were delivered by Brooking. He revealed which members of the side had become fathers through the current season, (astonishing to think those babies will now be adults of 50), also divulging three bearded team-mates – captain Billy Bonds, full-back Frank Lampard and midfielder Graham Paddon – were known collectively as ‘The Musketeers’.
Brooking explained that due to a perceived resemblance to the heartthrob Osmond brother, 19-year-old goalkeeper Day was nicknamed ‘Donny, while Taylor was a ‘quiet, likeable lad’ for whom the thought of playing at Wembley took some believing so soon after leaving Rochdale.
Such shyness on the part of Taylor was evident in another, by now, traditional pre-match segment, the players gathering for a collective interview at the team hotel. Having a boyish smile that could easily have him pass as a Bay City Roller, he thanked team-mates for their support since joining the club, his quietly expressed gratitude undercut by an aside from elsewhere in the group that prompted loud laughter – yet it would be him receiving thanks from the others when all was said and done later in the day.
Previously to Liverpool routing Newcastle 12 months before, the ten FA Cup Finals prior to that had all been decided by a single goal and while in this instance a tight contest was expected, the pre-match formalities were conducted amid an ambience more neighbourly than knife-edge.
Rival managers Stock and Lyall in leading out their respective sides, smile and chat with one another like neighbours who chanced upon each other in the street. Moore, on the walk to the halfway line where the players will be introduced to dignitaries, happily passes the time of day with those with whom he once played.
Naturally, 34-year-old Moore is the subject of several close-up camera shots, BBC match commentator David Coleman (studio analysis being provided by England boss Don Revie whose stock is high following a four match unbeaten start to his reign), remarking on the cordiality in evidence before striking an earnest tone with:
‘Bobby Moore walking out at into Wembley atmosphere he loves and knows so well.’
Given they have not played a tie in London since a fourth round second replay against Nottingham Forest three months before, (their 11-match route to the final a record that will stand forever now replays have been dispensed with), Fulham begin in a manner befitting a home side, looking neat and composed when in possession.
They go closest to a breakthrough when towering centre-back John Lacy meets a Les Barrett corner with a powerful header, but unlike Newcastle’s Dan Burn at the same end of the ground 50 years later, fails to score when the ball flashes wide of an upright.
At the other end West Ham toil to no great effect in creating an opening, two headers, one of the glancing variety by Taylor, the other a looping affair from Jennings, the best they can offer – Fulham goalkeeper Peter Mellor in gathering the latter looking assured for the last time during the afternoon.
Early in the second half he looked none to convincing when diving to thwart a long-range, low drive from West Ham full-back John McDowell, but with the hour mark approaching Mellor palms out a low shot from Jennings and on hand is Taylor who follows up to break the deadlock. Five minutes later it is an effort from Paddon the former England U-23 ‘keeper cannot hold, Taylor pouncing to convert an unmissable close range opportunity.
If a couple of years earlier Monty’s miraculous double save had gone a long way toward Sunderland winning the cup, then Peter’s pair of blunders extinguished what chance Fulham had of doing likewise, although in truth the Hammers had taken control of the game virtually from the restart.
With Taylor netting twice in continuing the sequence which also brought him two goals in the quarter and semi-finals, he and West Ham – still standing as the last team to lift the trophy with eleven English players – became the story of the 1975 FA Cup Final rather than Moore, who nevertheless received the commiserations of ex-colleagues with affable dignity.
Many years’ later East End actor and staunch West Ham supporter Ray Winstone, a teenager at the time, said he would have accepted The Hammers losing that day in order for Moore to have picked up a winners medal. While his putting aside of partisan loyalty is admirable and regard for this remarkable footballer heartfelt, in truth Fulham, a couple of first-half flourishes aside, rarely showed the intent or belief needed to win the game.
They never looked overawed yet neither was their play enterprising enough to threaten an upset, creating a strong sense that reaching Wembley from a distant start point and after such a circuitous route was beyond the expectations of anyone, not least Fulham themselves.
But even then there is something fondly endearing about two former England internationals among a collection of steady, if largely unsung second division players, led by a convivial English manager, reaching the FA Cup Final – like West Ham and their line-up all being from England, there is not the remotest chance of it ever happening again.
Scoring first might have helped in giving Fulham a lead to protect, but The Hammers rear-guard, who judging by their defensive record were always prone to concede (leaking as many goals that season as bottom of the table Carlisle), had their quietist afternoon of the season in this the final game – the last twenty minutes of which were a case of West Ham having done sufficient without being sparkling, Mullery and his men unable to muster anything to alter the outcome.
At least Fulham had gone further than four previous semi-final defeats, but the days and weeks belonged to The Hammers and the Rollers, both of whom had an Alan at the root of their success – Scot Longmuir had formed the current chart-topping act, Taylor the key figure in West Ham’s 1975 FA Cup winning team.
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