{"id":9060,"date":"2024-01-06T20:18:30","date_gmt":"2024-01-06T20:18:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9060"},"modified":"2024-01-08T07:12:31","modified_gmt":"2024-01-08T07:12:31","slug":"saddle-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=9060","title":{"rendered":"Saddle up!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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And so to the Stadium of Stone on Sunday afternoon, with a horse to get back on after two unfestive league defeats over the holidays. Yet, a new year, a different competition and, hopefully, a fresh start.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

History leans to our side. Sunday’s 3rd round match will be our 14th FA Cup tie against Liverpool. We have won eight of the previous 13 and lost five. Two ties went to replays. One, in 1923, was lost. The other, in 1980, was eventually won on the fourth attempt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thirteen Titanic contests over more than a century, from which a selection of three:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1913<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first time the two clubs met in the FA Cup was in the Second Round on a very wet February 1, 1913. Liverpool won 4-1. They had much the better of the first half and went into the break 2-0 ahead. We rallied after the half-time oranges. A header by Charlie Lewis, a stalwart of the attack on either side of the Great War, from a cross by outside right George Burrell cut the arrears, but the equaliser would not come. Liverpool scored twice more before heading North to dry out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ‘wretched weather’ might explain why the crowd at the Manor Ground totalled only 8,653, the smallest at the 16 cup ties played that day. The Bradford Telegraph attributed it to a poor Woolwich Arsenal team that would finish the season bottom of the old First Division, having won only three of their 38 games (and you think two losses in a row is a disaster!). ‘The Arsenal are doomed,’ it wrote. ‘The last days of first-class football at Plumstead are near at hand.’ Indeed, they were. The final game at the Manor Ground, a 1-1 draw against Middlesbrough, was played barely two months later, on April 26, 1913. Our next game would be at Highbury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The relatively remote location of Plumstead did not help the club’s parlous financial state that prompted the move. The gate receipts for the Liverpool tie were \u00a3343. By comparison, eventual Cup winners Aston Villa, who drew the biggest crowd of the day, 50,000, to watch West Ham be beaten 5-0, took in \u00a31,863. The Burnley Gazette marvelled at the ‘phenomenal’ attendances at the cup ties overall with ‘no fewer than seven games bringing in a revenue of four figures’. Adjusting for inflation, watching the game would cost just over \u00a35 in today’s money. That wouldn’t get you a pint now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1950<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first Arsenal-Liverpool FA Cup game likely to have impinged on the memories of at least the senior members of this fine establishment is the 1950 Final at Wembley, even if they heard tell of it while being bounced on their father’s knees. Remarkably, we had reached Wembley without playing a tie outside London. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Lewis, Reg, would be our goalscorer that day. His temporally symmetrical brace from inside left \u2014 a one-on-one with Liverpool keeper Cyril Sidlow after 18 minutes and a low drive from the edge of the penalty area 18 minutes after half-time \u2014 gave us a 2-0 win and the Cup for the third time, the penultimate trophy of the extended Chapman era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Again, it was a wet day with a sodden pitch, but unlike in 1913, we were the better team in what one reporter called a grim and thrilling game, but another said never rose to any great heights. We came with a plan, which was to cut off supply to the Scousers’ dangerous wingers, Billy Liddell and Jimmy Payne, leaving equally dangerous centre forward Albert Stubbins to founder in the middle against the ‘Iron Curtain’ of our defence lowered by centre-half Leslie Compton. By the by, Leslie’s brother and TTG mother’s heart throb, Denis, the Brylcreem boy himself, was on our left wing (in the footballing, not the ideological sense).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither side played in their traditional red shirts to avoid the colour clash. Liverpool wore white, with black shorts. We wore gold shirts and white shorts. For those who keep sartorial notes, the King wore a black bowler hat and a brown overcoat for his penultimate Wembley final. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pictures from British Path\u00e9 News: https:\/\/cutt.ly\/wwF0igQh<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1980<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a third game to recall, I was tempted by the Double-winning 1971 final, with its iconic image of Charlie George lying flat on his back in the Wembley sunshine, arms outstretched, after beating Ray Clemence from distance for the winning goal. TTG and C100 did such a wonderful job with their commemorative piece (click on the tab above) that I will instead choose the epic three-replay semi-final of 1980, the longest tie in FA Cup history, seven hours of tense, enthralling football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The first game at Hillsborough ended scoreless. Four days later, the replay at Villa Park was a 1-1 draw after extra time, as was the second replay at the same ground, with Kenny Daglish grabbing a last-gasp equaliser for the Scousers. Between the two replays, we had drawn 1-1 at Anfield in the league and at Highbury against West Brom and beaten Juventus in Turin in the semi-final of the Cup Winners Cup\u2014nothing new in fixture congestion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On May Day, the teams regrouped on a blustery Thursday evening at Highfield Road, Coventry, for the unprecedented third replay. Brian Talbot settled it after 12 minutes. Frank Stapleton picked a stumbling Ray Kennedy’s pocket on the wing and crossed for Talbot to head crisply past Clemence. The Scousers battled on. We were backs against the wall for the entirety of the second half, ‘defending desperately’, according to Frank McGhee in the Daily Mirror, or ‘composed and resolute’ if you prefer the Observer’s description. Liverpool squandered chance after chance but could have played all night without getting the ball in the net. It was one of those nights when David O’Leary and Big Willie Young stood tall, and Pat Jennings had glue on his gloves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went onto our third consecutive final \u2014 a record \u2014 but lost to West Ham, the last time a team from outside the top flight won the Cup. Four days later, in Brussels, the Cup Winners Cup slipped from our grasp in a penalty shootout with Valencia after the game had finished 0-0. But in Coventry, we had at least prevented the Scousers from doing the double.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2024<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is not inconceivable that Sunday’s victor will similarly prove to have denied the other a double. Equally, the FA Cup may be both managers’ best hope of any silverware this season. Thus, the match will likely be as intense as the league game before Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That may be what is needed to stir us from the torpor that pervaded the team against Fulham. I would contend that peak Arsenal beats peak Liverpool this season. Yet, it is hard not to argue that, of late, the Scousers are the team nearer peak form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Availabilities may be the difference. Zinchenko’s calf (late fitness test) and Tomiyasu’s absence at the Asian Cup leave us light at left-back, so it is helpful that Salah will be away at AFCON alongside our own Mohamed Elneny. Klopp will also be without Wataru Endo (Asian Cup) and Dominik Szoboszlai (hamstring). Your match day trivia: the digraph ‘sz’ is the thirty-second letter of the Hungarian alphabet, and not to be confused with ‘zs’, the forty-fourth and last letter. Khmer has the longest alphabet, with 74 letters, since you ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will Arteta rotate to freshen things up? I doubt it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For us:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raya<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White, Saliba, Gabriel, Zinchenko\/Kiwior<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d8degaard, Rice, Havertz<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saka, Jes\u00fas, Martinelli<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither manager will give an inch. Liverpool will press and counterattack, as they do in away games; we shall attempt to turn a majority of possession into goals. Unless torpidity overtakes us again, I can only see this being won by the odd goal, 2-1 perhaps, and possibly after a replay that neither manager will want.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We shall be in all-white. It will be the third time we have worn our ‘No More Red’ strip in support of the work undertaken by the club to help keep young Londoners safe from knife crime and youth violence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enjoy the game, ‘holics, near and far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And so to the Stadium of Stone on Sunday afternoon, with a horse to get back on after two unfestive league defeats over the holidays. Yet, a new year, a different competition and, hopefully, a fresh start.   History leans to our side. Sunday’s 3rd round match will be our 14th FA Cup tie against Liverpool. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9062,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9060\/revisions\/9062"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}