Whether we play Sutton United or AFC Wimbledon, our next FC Cup tie will bring back memories of previous fourth round encounters between the mighty 1970s version of Leeds United and plucky non-league opponents.
Tonight we will learn the identity of our opponents in the next round of the FA Cup, as AFC Wimbledon and Sutton United replay their third round tie at Kingsmeadow. Although parts of London were brought to a standstill by a few flakes of snow over the weekend, the area should have thawed out enough for the game to take place.
The first game took place on Sutton’s plastic pitch, and AFCW might have been a little bit unsettled by the surface, as the non-league side had the better of the game. But it finished 0-0, and you would expect League One Wimbledon to win the replay on their own ground.
Our own visit to Sutton’s Gander Green lane was way back in 1970, when the home side got through to the fourth round, and were rewarded with a tie against the famous Don Revie side. 14,000 packed into the ground to see it, although if we go back this season we can assume that modern safety regulations will ensure the crowd is a little bit smaller than that!
The Match of the Day cameras were there to record the game, but there was to be no shock on that occasion. This was well before the days of top clubs fielding weakened sides in the FA Cup, and the full Revie team were way too good for them progressing by 6 goals to 0. We went on to reach the Semi-Final without having to play first division opposition, but that was of course the season when we fell victims to a fixture pile-up and lost to Chelsea in the replay of the final.
The Sutton team that day included Dario Gradi, who we faced many years later when he was manager of Crewe, and also John Faulkner, who was possibly Leeds unluckiest signing of all time. Don Revie signed Faulkner after being impressed with his marking of Mick Jones. But Faulkner scored an own goal in his first Leeds game, and dislocated his kneecap in the second. After a long recovery, his only other two games were for a weakened Leeds team in the UEFA Cup, when we were embarrassed by little-known Belgian side Lierse SK.
We came far closer to an upset when we faced Wimbledon at the same stage of the competition five years later. You will have noticed that for the purposes of this article I’m counting AFC Wimbledon as the ‘old’ Wimbledon FC. Technically they are a different club, formed when the League controversially allowed the Dons to relocate to Milton Keynes, but everyone associated with AFCW sees them as upholding the history and tradition of the ‘crazy gang’.
By 1975 Don Revie was managing England, but we had survived the 44 days Brian Clough and were climbing the league under new manager Jimmy Armfield. We would of course reach the European Cup final that season, for our infamous and undeserved defeat at the hands of Bayern Munich. Wimbledon were battling for the title of the Southern League, and were still a couple of years away from election to the Football League.
We annoyed our visitors before the game had even started, by inviting The Wombles to prance on the Elland Road turf before kick-off. Daft as it now seems, early 1975 was the height of Womble-mania, with the mythical furry creatures enjoying their own kids TV programme (fondly remembered by those of us of a certain age) and riding high in the charts under the influence of musician Mike Batt.
Non-League they may have been, but Wimbledon had already beaten first division Burnley 1-0 away in the third round, and produced another excellent performance against Leeds. A penalty near the end seemed to have spared our blushes, but Dickie Guy produced a famous save from Peter Lorimer, and the game ended 0-0. Guy is now president of AFCW.
Plough Lane was deemed to be too small for the replay, which was moved to Selhurst Park and attracted a crowd of over 45,000, an incredible figure for a game where a non-league club were the hosts. It was irritating that Wimbledon refused to quote this crowd as their record attendance even when they had permanently moved to Selhurst, with the record books showing their highest crowd as being the 30,115 against Man U at the same venue in 1993.
But the Wombles were not among the many who flocked to Selhurst Park that night, as the home club sniffily refused to allow them to perform. "We are Wimbledon FC, not the Wombles of Wimbledon Common”. Spoilsports. The match itself was another close affair, finally decided by an own goal from none other than Dave Bassett, who was to be their manager a decade later (and endured a short spell at Leeds as assistant manager under Dennis Wise).
We went on to beat Derby through another own goal in the fifth round, but our luck ran out against Ipswich in the sixth, when the referee disallowed what would have been yet another decisive own goal in our favour. We were eventually to lose to the tractor boys in a third replay at neutral Filbert Street.
Will this season’s fourth round tie be fondly remembered in over 40 years time? Whichever club we end up playing, it has been chosen for television coverage by BT Sport and will kick off at 2pm on Sunday, January 29. And if you’re lucky enough to get a ticket, you can look out for the ‘Awaydaze’ article I’ll write nearer the time.