Saints V Crystal Palace FA Cup 1976 Wednesday, 21st Jan 2015 09:43 We have form against Crystal Palace in the FA Cup however perhaps the greatest ever meeting between the two sides was on 3rd April 1976 in the FA Cup Semi Final at Stamford Bridge. Saints fans breathed a sigh of relief when the draw was made for the semi final of the 1976 FA Cup, second division Southampton were paired with third division Crystal Palace, in truth Palace fans must have been delighted as well as the other two teams left in the competition were Manchester United and Derby County, both of whom were in the top four of the first division sitting only two points behind then leaders Queens Park Rangers. Then United boss Tommy Docherty sparked controversy by saying that this was the first time that the final would be played at Hillsborough and that the other semi was a bit of a joke, but fans of both clubs didn't care, they knew that they now had a reasonable chance of reaching Wembley and the truth was the favourites were Saints. The date was set for Stamford Bridge on 3rd April and Saints won the first battle in the war between Palace boss Malcolm Allison and Saints by claiming the Shed End for Saints supporters. This was seen as significan, back then Chelseas ground was seen as rather lacking in atmosphere, this was because it was a huge bowl with essentially a running track running along three sides, the fourth side is the only part of the stadium that now remains, the East stand,both ends were big curved terraces a good 25 yards or so behind the goal. But the Shed End was Chelsea's in their league games and whilst the opposite North stand was completely open to the elements, the Shed at least had a covering at the back of the terrace and that enabled some noise to be generated. Malcolm Allison had been the character of the competition of that year, wearing a big coat and his lucky Fedora he was much more famous than Mcmenemy who at that time was relatively unknown. Each club received around 23,500 tickets for the game with the other 5,000 for the home club and neutrals etc, therefore a crowd of 52,810 assembled for the occasion. All the stories pre match were about Allison and his Fedora, Lawrie Mcmenemy wisely preferred to keep quiet and took his team off to Frinton On Sea in Essex for the days before the game to keep his players out of the spotlight, the Saints boss was quietly confident but it was not his way to shout the odds as the Palace manager was doing. The only issue Saints had before the game was the fitness of Hugh Fisher who had played in every game so far, Fisher had a slight knock and was left to decide whether he was fit enough to play or not, the temptation must have been to just declare himself fit after all this was the biggest game of his life, but Fisher was honest and said that he wasn't quite up to 90 minutes, therefore he was named as sub, a decision that would ultimately cost him dearly as being unused sub as he was at Stamford bridge would ultimately be his fate four weeks later at Wembley, ironic as without Fisher's last minute equaliser at home to Aston Villa in the 3rd round, history for Saints would be far different. Palace's dangerman was peter Taylor who had been the first 3rd division player to be capped for England in many years the week before, but overall it was felt that Saints with their eperience would see through. The first half was tense and both teams seemed scared of committing and getting caught out, a swirling wind was not helping matters much. so at the break it was goalless. The second half started out pretty much as the first, however there was a sense that Saints were just starting to edge it confirmed on the hour when Peter Osgood headed inches over the bar. But on 74 minutes Saints took the lead and it was Paul Gilchrist the man who would probably have been on the bench if Fisher had declared himself fit who got it. It was a shot hit from fully 25 yards and although Mick Channon has many times tongue in cheek claimed it brushed his sock it was very much Gilchrist's goal, the Shed End erupted and Wembley was in sight, Five minutes later came the second goal that made the final ten minutes bearable, David Peach put through a ball to Channon who in full flow was bundled over and the ref pointed to the spot, there was some controversy whether it was slightly outside the box but not to the ref who pointed to the spot. The Shed End was silent no on dared breathe let alone shout, but who would take it, Mick Channon had missed his second penalty of the season only two weeks earlier, would he risk missing a third ? the answer was up stepped David Peach for his first penalty for the club and as history records it was the first one he scored of many tosend the Saints fans behind the goal wild. The last ten minutes in a semi final are always tense even with a two goal lead and this was no exception, but Palace were a beaten side, Channon should have made it three but shot wide with only the keeper to beat but Saints kept it tight and when the final whistle blew it was the signal for mass celebration at least at one end of the ground. That whistle seemed to release tension bottled up in Saints fans for 74 years since the last time we had reached an FA Cup Final, we had come close but had never quite made it and the club had never played at Wembley, grown men cried on the terraces as the realization hit home that we were finally going to do so and in some respects the joy at the semi final was far more emotional than winning the final itself, perhaps it was because we thought that whoever we played there would beat us, so getting there was the clubs greatest triumph in its history so far,whatever the reason the celebrations went on far into the night. Not for most of the players though, 3 days later Saints had to go to Fratton Park to face Pompey, we still had feint hopes of promotion whilst Pompey would go down to the third division if they lost. Missing from the Saints side at Fratton were Jim McCalliog, Peter Osgood and Jim Steele all of whom had been dropped for disobeying their manager and celebrating too hard, Pat Earles and Steve Williams made their full debuts and Earles wearing Osgood's number 9 was subjected to chants of "Osgood is a W****r" every time he touched the ball, Pompey fan seemingly unable to notice that perhaps one of the most famous centre forwards in England over the past decade was not actually playing. 24,115 were in Fratton that night under half the then capacity, although the extra 16,000 over their usual crowd in that night did mean that they could at least have an average of over 10,000 by the end of the season. It looked like Pompey would live to fight another day in the relegation battle, but in the final minute up popped Mick Channon to seal their fate, all in all a glorious few days to be a Saints fan and the exact opposite if you were a Pompey supporter. The only sour note of the week was after Saints victory at Stamford Bridge, the evening saw the Eurovision song contest and it was won by Britain, sadly the winners were Brotherhood Of man with the song Save All Your Kisses For Me, perhaps one of the worst songs in the history of music and it would form the soundtrack of the next few weeks with the song being played incessantly. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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