On 23/11/2025 at 14:51, Boyne said:

On 25/11/2025 at 16:15, Boyne said:

Ossie looks a tad unimpressed ?

Highlights of the 19th Jan 1985 game v Arsenal, first game on MOTD .

On 27/11/2025 at 20:27, Boyne said:

Anyone know if Johnny B is still driving a taxi in SE London? Might this photo be after him scoring in the 1-0 win over dirty Leeds in 89ish? Pre match me and a few of the mob were in the Black Bull, when the Leeds coach came down Fulham Road we swarmed onto the pavement to dish out serious abuse, those who could not get a space on the pavement climbed onto the window sills of the BB and started dishing it out; they had to hang onto each other to stop falling off. Happy days. “We all ****ing hate Leeds and Leeds and …”

A Happy Birthday to Steve Finnieston.

Steve Finnieston on his first team debut, scoring past Leicester keeper Graham Cross at Filbert Street. 1st February 1975. Not a bad way to start!

Big Doug celebrates scoring against West Brom with King Kerry. 17th Nov 1984. We won 3-1.

King Kerry has just scored against the Dippers. We won 3-1. 1st December 1984.

David Speedie celebrates his goal against the Dippers during the 3-1 win on 1st Dec 1984.

Above and below:And the rest of the team join the celebrations!😀

On 28/11/2025 at 21:00, Gate 13 said:

Anyone know if Johnny B is still driving a taxi in SE London? Might this photo be after him scoring in the 1-0 win over dirty Leeds in 89ish? Pre match me and a few of the mob were in the Black Bull, when the Leeds coach came down Fulham Road we swarmed onto the pavement to dish out serious abuse, those who could not get a space on the pavement climbed onto the window sills of the BB and started dishing it out; they had to hang onto each other to stop falling off. Happy days. “We all ****ing hate Leeds and Leeds and …”

Just looked up Johnny B on Bounderfriardale he scored in two matches that season and both against Leeds

Eddie Mac tackle on Billy Bremner. And quite rightly the ref waved play on…😀

4 hours ago, erskblue said:

Eddie Mac tackle on Billy Bremner. And quite rightly the ref waved play on…😀

If anyone is going to be at Leeds on Wednesday night could they please check if Eddie Gray is still limping - he should be!

Ron Harris making a tackle during the 1970 FA Cup Final.

Edited December 2, 2025Dec 2 by erskblue

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/04/29/1970-memories-from-the-men-who-won-the-cup?cardIndex=0-1

1970 memories from the men who won the Cup.

Originally posted in April 2020 and I’ve copied it from ‘Our Road to Wembley 1970 Thread.’

First-hand tales of a special day on a special anniversary...

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the day we first laid hands on a trophy we had been chasing for over 60 years.

Chelsea players had come close before. We were losing FA Cup finalists in 1915 and in 1967, three years before many of the same players eventually triumphed. There had been numerous semi-finals too, but at last on a late April evening in Manchester, watched by a packed crowd in the stadium and a record TV audience, Chelsea at last won the Cup.

To mark one of the club's most-loved team's most famous days, the game is being shown in full on the 5th Stand app tonight at 7.30pm UK time and it will be available on demand afterwards.

Ahead of that and to further celebrate the anniversary, we have words from some of the key players involved, about events before and after the 1970 FA Cup replay versus Leeds at Old Trafford.

 

Charlie Cooke - the silky-skilled Scot who made magic in the middle of the park on the night, not least his run and pass for Peter Osgood's iconic diving equaliser:

It surprised me when I remembered back that there was actually almost three weeks between the final and the replay. There was a lot of time to work up to it and think about it, so it was unusual in that sense, and also the pitches had dried out a bit. I don't think people realise just how soft and deep the mud was at Wembley for the first game.
 

John Hollins - the Chelsea youth product and midfield dynamo whose move out to the left flank in the second half of the replay helped revive a trailing side:

That was the danger at Wembley, a heavy pitch. Had it not been for Peter Bonetti and some good defensive work we would have been high and dry, out of the cup.

In the first game Leeds completely dominated and then we nearly nicked it in extra-time, although we wouldn't have deserved it in the Wembley game. They had dominated that match for sure. By the time we got to Old Trafford, the field had dried out completely. I wouldn't say it was dusty but it was certainly much firmer and didn't have a lot of grass down in the middle. That made a huge difference to the game.

We were finishing off the season and there was a feeling you could take care of any injuries and you made sure you were fit.

As far as the game itself, it was such a huge thing. People forget the rivalry between Leeds and Chelsea, this was a huge game.

Another thing you have to remember is that because the '67 Final against Spurs was a London derby and we lost it, it was a huge disappointment for all the fans and the club. That was a big weight on the club's shoulders.

We went on the train to the replay. I don't think we trained anywhere. We had a run but we just went up there, stayed in the hotel and had a sleep in the afternoon. But you were playing an FA Cup Final replay. How were you supposed to sleep in the afternoon?


Ron Harris - the captain, youth product and enforcer who switched position for the replay and neutralised main Leeds threat Eddie Gray:

You used to get into the train compartments and you'd get people walking through the trains, so you'd always mix with the supporters a little.

Ossie used to invite some into the compartment. The only time they stayed away was when we were having our meal. That was always private.

 

Hollins: When we arrived we had scrambled eggs on toast and tea. I had no appetite at all. It was something really light, no steak and chips. You just had to feel like your stomach was full, to get a bit more relaxed and afterwards I remember thinking, 'I feel great; I'm ready to go now'.

What impressed me most was the fans. As you came out of the tunnel at Old Trafford, the Stretford End was a mass of blue and white and there was a tremendous roar.


Harris: For the replay it was almost like we were playing at home. I'd say we had more fans there than Leeds even though Old Trafford is just down the road for them and it was on a Wednesday night. The vocal support was fantastic. It just erupted and I still get a tingle now when I think about it.

The atmosphere at Chelsea wasn't as good because of the dog track and the fans were so far away from the pitch so when we went to Old Trafford I felt the support was tremendous. Anybody who played that game will tell you that.

Hollins: The whole feeling was that we had to do something for these guys but unfortunately we went 1-0 down. The whole place fell silent. We are looked around at each other but you could see it had annoyed everyone.


Harris: I do remember at 1-0 it went quiet but when Peter Osgood scored the diving header, the whole place erupted. At that point I think a lot of people would have backed Chelsea to go on and win, only because of the fantastic support.

Chelsea songs were all you could hear and scarves swinging was all you could see. It was absolutely fantastic. When we lost the first goal, Leeds' confidence was high but once Ossie scored you could see their confidence seeping away.

All of a sudden they looked a lot smaller and we knew we had them.

 

David Webb – the defender who completed a fairytale story by scoring the winner, having been given such an awful time by Leeds winger Eddie Gray in the first clash:

We talked about changing the defence as soon as we got on the coach to go home from Wembley. Ron Harris is a tighter marker than me and we thought it would be better if he took Eddie Gray who had given me such a hard time and I looked after Allan Clarke.

We might even have done that in the first match if Ronnie had been fully fit and the way it worked proved what a good move it was. First of all at Wembley I thought the pitch was against me and then everything went against me. To get the winning goal was marvellous after all I went through then.

Leeds thrived for a long time on intimidation but we were too brave for them.

 

Cooke: We finally deserved it in the end and it was a great event but leading up to the replay, the emotions were all real. It was very much Leeds versus Chelsea and there was a lot of feeling going into that game. Add the fact that it was an FA Cup final, an FA Cup final when they were extremely important as well. You didn't have the Champions League overshadowing it then. It was the big event of the year.

Let's not mince words. We all know the reputation Leeds have for hard men. In the heat of the match, when all you can think about is winning, it lifted me to see the way some of them were turning away and appealing to the ref.


Hollins: It was about determination, skill and drive. We had the mentality that we would not let another goal in but we would score against them.

The power and strength of that is amazing. We played 90 minutes plus 30 on a heavy, doughy pitch at Wembley, which took every bit of energy out of us. But all of us had to play; if somebody ran you had to pick him up. It tested everyone to their ultimate level of fitness and skill. It took everything out of us in the replay as well. There were 22 players who gave everything they had and all of them were very good players, but we came out on top.


Harris: The only disappointment for the players was we didn't have the 39 steps to walk up to lift the trophy; it took a bit of the gloss off it. Everybody will tell you walking up the steps is all part of the whole experience but it never happened for us.
 

Hollins: At the time the FA Cup was sponsored by the milk board and we were in the bath drinking pints of milk and I was thinking, 'milk?' while David Webb was sat in the bath, with a cigarette, saying, 'We've won it,' while drinking milk. It was quite surreal.

Cooke: I don't think we drank too much milk. It was a pretty wild group then and we enjoyed a little bit more than milk at that time. The celebrations were brilliant. It was a joyous time, it must have been a bitter moment for Leeds, a tough one to take for them, but we were overjoyed. That was a huge thing for the club, the first big one, Leeds, first historic replay, all these things made it big. A lot of people took time off work, a lot of kids took the next day off school. It was just brilliant for everybody.


Hollins: I remember we had the FA Cup on the train, bacon and egg, a few beers, lots of singing and the journey took no time at all. Then there was an open-top bus which took us from Euston Station all the way down to Fulham Town Hall.


Harris: There were a few blurry eyes on the train, because we'd all had a celebration the night before. Then we had to catch the train back at 7.30 in the morning. But I can remember getting off at Euston and driving on the bus all the way back. That was fantastic. I have never seen so many people in and around Fulham Road. Thousands and thousands of supporters who would have travelled back in the morning. That will stay with me until the day I die.

The supporters were all singing the songs from the terraces and going past a market, people threw up apples and pears to the lads.

 

Hollins: There was plenty of champagne at the Town Hall. There were thousands of people out the front and we went out on the balcony


Harris: Chelsea had been starved of success and I'm proud of the fact that I'm the first Chelsea captain to ever lift the Cup. It was an historic moment.

Eddie Macs tackle on Billy Bremner…😀

King Kerry Scores v Dirty Leeds. 28th April 1984.

And celebrates...

Redemption And Promotion As Leeds Thrashed 5-0

• www.chelseaheritagepartnership.com

• Apr 28, 2024

Late April 1984. Heady times indeed for Chelsea supporters. After the club had spent four seasons in the Division Two doldrums, manager John Neal had created an exciting charismatic side who, backed by fervent support, had not lost for nearly four months and were seemingly on an unstoppable journey to promotion.

Chairman Bates had gambled in Summer 1983, after the club had nearly gone down to Division Three, and rather than sack Neal he backed the manager, cleared out a host of players and brought in a phalanx of promising youngsters.

So many games that season were memorable but without doubt one of the most iconic was the home clash with old rivals Leeds United on April 28th.

Four days earlier Chelsea could have clinched promotion, subject to a mathematical catastrophe, by winning at Portsmouth in front of 8,000+ travelling supporters. 2-0 up through Mickey Thomas and Pat Nevin, they conceded twice and had to make do with a 2-2 draw.

This meant the table looked as follows :- Sheff Wed p36, 78 pts; Chelsea p38 76 pts; Newcastle p38 73 pts; Man City p38 66 pts; Grimsby p38 66 pts.

Sheffield Wednesday, already up subject to Man City or Grimsby going goal crazy, needed eleven points from five games to ensure the title. The following night they surprisingly lost at Middlesbrough, making the title race a bit more open, though it was still theirs to lose.

So Chelsea could ensure promotion by beating their bitter rivals of nearly 20 years, Leeds United, on the Saturday.

The hostility between the teams dating back to the late 1960s had been mirrored by open hostility between the supporters, and it was a lively trip to Elland Road made by thousands of Chelsea supporters the previous October in a 1-1 draw.

When they travelled to Stamford Bridge, Leeds were languishing in midtable, twenty points off a promotion place, and were a shadow on the side that had reached the European Cup Final less than a decade earlier.

And, unlike, Chelsea, they were hardly on the up.

Neal was hugely frustrated at dropping two points at Fratton Park, commenting ‘We had promotion in our grasp and threw it away. Now I want us to go for the kill this time…I want us to go flat out for victory, to end the waiting game as quickly as possible’.

The game was the main back page story in the Daily Mirror, the ‘Bridge Party – Chelsea All Set To Go Surging Up’ headline speaking volumes about the sense of anticipation at the club and among the support.

Chelsea were able to pick an unchanged side for the fifth match in a row :- Niedzwiecki; Lee, Pates, McLaughlin, Jones; Bumstead ,Spackman, Thomas; Nevin, Dixon, Speedie.

Leeds lined up :- Harvey; Irwin, Hamson, Watson, Aspin; Dickinson, Wright, Sellars; Lorimer, Ritchie, Galvin. David Harvey and Peter Lorimer had been in the Leeds side that lost the brutal 1970 FA Cup Final; replay to Chelsea some 14 years earlier, so were used to suffering at the hands of The Blues.

Fulham Road was buzzing hours before the game and the eventual crowd of 33,447 (though it seemed like more, The Shed was utterly rammed) was the second-biggest at Stamford Bridge that season, after the January 3-2 victory over Sheffield Wednesday.

The bare facts were these. Mickey Thomas (6 minutes) volleyed home a Kerry Dixon header, precipitating a minor pitch invasion from the West Stand benches. Dixon (18 and 23 minutes) put Chelsea out of sight before half-time.

Pat Nevin laid on Dixon’s first after beating four Leeds players before crossing for him to head home and David Speedie set up his second, a superb angled lob over Harvey’s head.

I remember away end late arrivals being serenaded with ‘Do you know you’re 3-0 down?’ by The Shed.

Dixon Nets His First

And celebrates...

The third goal brought another pitch invasion and Bates used a megaphone at half-time to ask supporters to stay in their places during the game, but invited them to go on the pitch at the end.

That plea worked to a degree but most of the second half felt like a swarm of supporters on the pitch was just waiting to happen.

Ken Bates' Half-Time Megaphone Appeal

Dixon completed an emphatic hat-trick from the edge of the area after 52 minutes. The game understandably meandered a bit as the crowd celebrated and Leeds had a couple of chances late on but in general Chelsea were completely dominant.

John Bumstead had hit the post twice from free-kicks, so the score could have been even more emphatic.

In the last minute, substitute Paul Canoville, on for Bumstead for the last 15 minutes, rounded off the thrashing with a brilliant solo goal.

Well before the final goal supporters were on the edge of the pitch. As Canoville celebrated his late goal, the masses charged joyously onto the pitch, which took a few minutes to clear before the game could restart and end. On the final whistle, the players charged off the pitch while thousands charged on. As the players celebrated at the front of the East Stand middle tier, they were doing so in front of a pitch packed with joyous supporters.

Supporters fill the pitch after the final whistle...

Coach John Hollins, Chairman Ken Bates And Manager John Neal Celebrate

Leeds supporters, unsurprisingly kept in, kept themselves amused by trying to smash up the scoreboard and fighting with police.

As we left the ground, probably 30 minutes after the final whistle, a posse of riot police were running through the Britannia Gate towards the away end. In all 300 police were on duty for that game.

West London celebrated and Fulham Broadway was very lively indeed that night.

The Sunday and Monday press coverage was more about off-field events than the game itself.

The Daily Mirror praised the ‘passion and adventure’ of the side but focussed on the pitch invasion, a charge towards the Leeds supporters, arrests and the fact the referee was knocked over by invading supporters after Canoville’s goal.

The Daily Telegraph eulogised the ‘vibrant performance’ but their headline ‘Chelsea’s Joy-Day Ends So Sadly’ reflected the tone of their match report.

The Mirror talked about Bates arranging to install fences at the sides of the pitch before the following season started, matching those in front of The Shed and North Stand terraces.

That was for another day, however. Chelsea were back where they belonged and all that remained was to try and win the League. Wednesday lost at Shrewsbury and drew at home to Manchester City while Chelsea won their last three games so Neal’s men won the title on goal difference, clinching it at Grimsby on another glorious and eventful day.

The Leeds game sticks in my memory forty years later as I am sure it does for everyone who was there.

Euphoria rarely experienced at any game, a sense of redemption after several bleak seasons, mixed with genuine anticipation of what Nevin, Dixon and Co could achieve among the big boys of Division One.

Bates, Neal and the players all deserved enormous credit for turning the side round so comprehensively in a matter of months. From chumps to champs.

The details in this piece are taken from newspapers and my memory. The latter is a bit faded after 40 years so it is entirely possible your recollections of that day may differ.