Monday, 28th January 1985

We drew 1-1 with Sheff Wed in Milk Cup 5th Round. at The Bridge

 Our scorer: David Speedie in the 29th min.

We'd a chance to win it. However, King Kerry Dixon had a penalty saved by the Wed keeper Martin Hodge in the  48th min.

 A crowd of 36,038 saw it,

Originally  game was scheduled for Wednesday 16th Jan at 7:30pm as per programme.

We play them in the replay on Wed 30th Jan at Hillsborough...

 

Edited January 28, 20206 yr by erskblue

2 minutes ago, erskblue said:

Monday, 28th January 1985

We drew 1-1 with Sheff Wed in Milk Cup 5th Round. at The Bridge

 Our scorer: David Speedie in the 29th min.

We'd a chance to win it. However, King Kerry Dixon had a penalty saved by the Wed keeper Martin Hodge in the  48th min.

 A crowd of 36,038 saw it,

Originally  game was scheduled for Wednesday 16th Jan at 7:30pm as per programme.

We play them in the replay on Wed 30th Jan at Hillsborough...

 

Not sure if I got a weird memory, but a lot of these programme covers I haven't seen for 35 years, but everytime you post them Ersk I remember them, and then I'm beamed back to the era, High School, fashion (casual),music and girls. Thanks 

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/1/22/league-cup-classic-remembered--part-one

 

From official site. The original match and replay. Sorry if this spoils the score for anyone...

The Blues have had our fair share of memorable League Cup ties, but perhaps none are more legendary than the three-part epic with Sheffield Wednesday in 1985, which we recall here with the help of former players...

In many ways it was the epic cup tie that defined a Chelsea era. 

It was certainly the cup tie that defined one player’s career and it reinforced one of the team’s biggest rivalries at the time. It stretched over three incident-packed matches and, for any fans who watched on, the story is not one easily forgotten.

John Neal’s Chelsea side were back in the big time and more than holding their own. It was the first season in the top flight after five down below and having crushed Manchester City in the previous round Chelsea were into the quarter-finals of the League Cup. After more than a decade without a Wembley appearance, it truly felt a major final was at last possible.

Firstly the Blues had to overcome Sheffield Wednesday at Stamford Bridge, the side we had been neck-and-neck with throughout most of the preceding promotion season, pipping them to the Second Division title at the last.  

The South Yorkshiremen too were proving more than good enough for the First Division and were in fourth place at turn of the year. The backdrop to our cup clash in early 1985 was the final days of the Miners’ Strike and one of the coldest winters in London for a long time.

Indeed the match had to be postponed from its scheduled date due to the freeze which imposed an unplanned two-week midwinter break. It was played 12 days later on a pitch rendered near-grassless by the methods used to thaw it for a league derby against Arsenal. A 36,000 crowd braved the cold and welcomed Wednesday to the capital city on a Monday night, two days after we had won at Wigan in the FA Cup.

‘The Sheffield Wednesday rivalry came from our first season together as a team and their manager Howard Wilkinson had them really fit,’ remembers our midfielder from three decades ago, Nigel Spackman, speaking to the official Chelsea website.

‘They played long ball, offside and they weren’t attractive to watch but very difficult to play against.’

‘As teams we were very close in the league but we were unbelievably different styles,’ adds Pat Nevin

‘They were big, strong, robust and we were more attack-minded and more skilful. I used to think of them almost as robots and that is how you ended up getting by them because they did the same things all the time. But they were a good side who got the better of us a couple of times and the rivalry grew, and these cup games nailed it on the head.’

The original meeting is the mostly forgotten part of this tale but although not reaching the nerve-shredding heights of the two replays that followed, it was still a very good game.

Wednesday took the lead with a header, equalised before the interval by David Speedie (pictured below). Kerry Dixon, the country’s topscorer with 27 goals at that point, had a penalty saved and Chelsea, having already hit the woodwork twice and had an effort cleared off the line, suffered a repeat of both those events in the final minute. The replay in Yorkshire took place only two days later. 

 

‘We were disappointed we had to go back to Hillsborough,’ says goalkeeper Eddie Niedzwiecki, ‘and my main recollection from up there was the crowd.

‘David Speedie came up to me in the warm-up and I said to him did you ever get this at Barnsley (one of his previous clubs) and he said no, did you ever get this at Wrexham! The Kop behind my goal at Sheffield Wednesday was huge and renowned, and their team came at us quickly when the game started and we didn’t match that.’

The attendance was the same size as at the Bridge but with a larger percentage of away fans, despite the short notice. However it was the home support enjoying the night as their team scored two typical headed goals.

‘I don’t remember those but I remember their third - Brian Marwood curled one past me from about 25 yards,’ says Niedzwiecki. ‘Any time when you are a goalkeeper you are disappointed to concede but to concede three in the first half, not much was going right.’

It would have been worse had the referee spotted Mickey Thomas’s retaliatory punch in the goalmouth in response to ceaseless provocation. The Chelsea support close by did not aid with the avoidance of detection when they instantly broke into a ‘There’s only one Mickey Thomas’ song, but the livewire Wales international (pictured below) remained on the pitch. 

 

‘The first thing our manager John Neal said at half-time was, “I don’t know what you hit him for Mickey, what did he say?”’ recounts Thomas. ‘And then John said to us all, “You’ve got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out”.’

‘Coming off at half-time, we were quite despondent,’ says Niedzwiecki, ‘but what riled us was the Wednesday players were quite buoyant. It was like – Can I score? Can I score? – they thought they had the job done. The boss brought Paul Canoville on.’

Canoville, in his autobiography Black and Blue, describes the dressing room as ‘bedlam’ with the likes of Joey Jones and Joe McLaughlin cajoling their colleagues to a better performance.

‘John Neal knew we were upset and sorting it out so he left that alone and went over the set-pieces with Pat and Kerry,’ he reports.

‘It happened now and again that we would concede a few goals,’ points out Nevin. ‘We were an open side and I remember going 3-0 down at Cardiff the season before and still drawing.

Read: Pat Nevin - Assessing the bigger picture

‘We weren’t dreadful against Wednesday but everything went right for them and it wasn’t going right for us, but then Paul came on and got a goal right at the start. My positon was totally different, I was basically centre-midfield for the rest of that game which I loved, I was really free to go wherever and we had so many hard workers. Mickey Thomas was like having two players and Spackers [Spackman] was the same, so we were going to run Wednesday.

‘After that goal went in a bunch of players looked at each other and thought we are going to do them. It is hard to explain why, but we just did.’

 

Chelsea on the attack trying to get back in to the game

Throughout half-time there had been a tremendous show of defiant singing from the Chelsea thousands. That bolstered the belief.

‘It always used to happen, I don’t remember it not happening when we were having a bad time,’ says Nevin. ‘The fans would just sing what looked very inappropriately when we were having a stinker. It was a massive part of getting us back into the game. It is a big old support Sheffield Wednesday have there but this was our fans going berserk.’

‘John Neal, God bless him, made the change at half-time and it was a positive move,’ notes Spackman, ‘and Canners with his pace caused all sorts of problems and we were playing down the hill. When we scored we didn’t think we are going to lose this.’

‘From the restart Joey just launched it from the back towards Kerry,’ Canoville writes in Black and Blue.

‘It was always a case of gambling in case Kerry knocked it on. It fell between me and a central defender and I nicked it off the boy’s foot. The left-foot shot bounced just in front of the keeper and gave him no chance. Eleven seconds after kick-off Wednesday were pegged back to 3-1.’  

It was soon 3-2. ‘Kerry Dixon took that goal awfully well,’ the commentator was later heard to say on the TV highlights.  

 

Thomas takes up the story.

‘Those two goals gave us the momentum and they just disintegrated really. For the equaliser, because I knew Pat so well and he had a great footballing brain and he could see things, that’s why I kept on running when he was attacking with ball. I didn’t really need to shout for it because he knew where I was and played it back into my path and I just struck it into the top corner.’

For Canoville, what was the pinnacle of his career on the pitch was also the night he met his father for the first time in 21 years, although not until after the final whistle. They were both in the stadium though and Canoville’s arm in the air at the end of the match was to acknowledge that fact. It was the young winger who put his side 4-3 ahead with 85 minutes played.

 

‘I knew Kerry liked to take the ball for himself, like all great goalscorers, but I was completely unmarked and running towards the penalty area,’ was Canoville’s recollection. ‘It must have been eight times I called, I was sure he’d look for some angle to shoot for himself, but he passed to me.

‘As it crossed the line I was thinking “Oh my God! This is the winner”.’

The scenes in the away supporters end were incredible and the perfect cup drama was almost complete, but there was one more twist. Inside the final seconds of normal time, Wednesday full-back Mel Sterland was charging into the Chelsea area with the ball but seemingly running out of space when our left-back Doug Rougvie tripped him. 
 

 

‘Doug claims to this day it was me giving the ball away that led to him being caught out of position,’ says Nevin.

‘I wanted to say something to Doug after the foul,’ adds Thomas, ‘because I was going to be able to make a challenge, but obviously we all make mistakes.’

Only Niedzwiecki stood between Wilkinson’s side and 4-4.

‘I had faced Mel Sterland before and seen a number of his penalties and kept telling myself to stand up because he had hit quite a few down the middle, but as any goalkeeper will tell you it is easier said than done. Unfortunately he put it straight down the middle and it nipped my toe.’

 

Wednesday make it 4-4 from the spot

Our Welsh international goalkeeper did play an important part in keeping the score the same in the extra-time that followed, but both teams were by now well and truly drained.

‘Doug giving away the penalty kind of didn’t matter when we were back the dressing room because we had been 3-0 down and got a draw, and they were coming back to our place,’ says Nevin.

Yes, there was disappointment that one of the greatest fight-backs in Chelsea history had not resulted in a win and a place in the semi-finals, but all’s well that ends well and had the team not let the 4-3 lead slip, Stamford Bridge would have been denied another night of high drama.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 minutes ago, chi blue said:

Not sure if I got a weird memory, but a lot of these programme covers I haven't seen for 35 years, but everytime you post them Ersk I remember them, and then I'm beamed back to the era, High School, fashion (casual),music and girls. Thanks 

No problem, more than happy to do so,

I'm the same re remembering things of that era, as you mention.

Edited January 28, 20206 yr by erskblue

Just the goals for us.

Sheffield Wednesday 4-4 Chelsea

30th Jan 1985  

Highlights. Some game !

Micky T in first game at The Bridge,.

8 hours ago, erskblue said:

Sheffield Wednesday 4-4 Chelsea

30th Jan 1985  

Highlights. Some game !

Has become a bit of an iconic game looking back now. Reckon it was that away kit, Paul Canoville changing the game, and Dougie at the end with that penalty, thankfully we won the replay. Remember coming into school next day and loads of people had watched it on sports night and were talking about it

2 hours ago, chi blue said:

Has become a bit of an iconic game looking back now. Reckon it was that away kit, Paul Canoville changing the game, and Dougie at the end with that penalty, thankfully we won the replay. Remember coming into school next day and loads of people had watched it on sports night and were talking about it

In some ways that 4-4 game v Sheff Wed summed up those couple of seasons.

It was an iconic game in an iconic couple of seasons for us.

2 hours ago, erskblue said:

In some ways that 4-4 game v Sheff Wed summed up those couple of seasons.

It was an iconic game in an iconic couple of seasons for us.

Stop it Ersk, your getting me all teary eyed looking back now. 

10 hours ago, chi blue said:

Stop it Ersk, your getting me all teary eyed looking back now. 

Okay, I will

This self confessed 'old Chelsea git' loves looking back !

'During the war...

Edited January 29, 20206 yr by erskblue

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2020/01/31/dale-jasper-1964-2020

The sad news of the passing of Dale Jasper on 30th January.

Saturday, 2nd Feb 1985 at 3pm

A 1-1 draw away with Leicester City.

Our scorer: David Speedie in the 45th min with a penalty.  Their scorer: The cover 'star' Gary Lineker.

A crowd of 15,657  saw it.

Next up, is  Millal lin the FA Cup 4th Rd at the Bridge on Monday, 4th February 1985.

Then Sheff Wed, again, at The Bridge.   In the Milk Cup second replay on Wed 6th February 1985 !

Edited February 2, 20206 yr by erskblue

 

We lost 3-2 to Millwall in our FA Cup 4th Round Tie.

On Monday, 4th Feb 1985 at The Bridge

Watched by a crowd of 25,148.

Our scorers: Nigel Spackman 54th and Paul, Canoville 58th mins.

David Speedie missed a penalty in the 88th min.

Next up and no rest ,as we play Sheff Wed, again the Milk Cup on Wed 6th Feb at The Bridge.

On 28/01/2020 at 07:28, erskblue said:

https://www.chelseafc.com/en/news/2019/1/22/league-cup-classic-remembered--part-one

 

From official site. The original match and replay. Sorry if this spoils the score for anyone...

The Blues have had our fair share of memorable League Cup ties, but perhaps none are more legendary than the three-part epic with Sheffield Wednesday in 1985, which we recall here with the help of former players...

In many ways it was the epic cup tie that defined a Chelsea era. 

It was certainly the cup tie that defined one player’s career and it reinforced one of the team’s biggest rivalries at the time. It stretched over three incident-packed matches and, for any fans who watched on, the story is not one easily forgotten.

John Neal’s Chelsea side were back in the big time and more than holding their own. It was the first season in the top flight after five down below and having crushed Manchester City in the previous round Chelsea were into the quarter-finals of the League Cup. After more than a decade without a Wembley appearance, it truly felt a major final was at last possible.

Firstly the Blues had to overcome Sheffield Wednesday at Stamford Bridge, the side we had been neck-and-neck with throughout most of the preceding promotion season, pipping them to the Second Division title at the last.  

The South Yorkshiremen too were proving more than good enough for the First Division and were in fourth place at turn of the year. The backdrop to our cup clash in early 1985 was the final days of the Miners’ Strike and one of the coldest winters in London for a long time.

Indeed the match had to be postponed from its scheduled date due to the freeze which imposed an unplanned two-week midwinter break. It was played 12 days later on a pitch rendered near-grassless by the methods used to thaw it for a league derby against Arsenal. A 36,000 crowd braved the cold and welcomed Wednesday to the capital city on a Monday night, two days after we had won at Wigan in the FA Cup.

‘The Sheffield Wednesday rivalry came from our first season together as a team and their manager Howard Wilkinson had them really fit,’ remembers our midfielder from three decades ago, Nigel Spackman, speaking to the official Chelsea website.

‘They played long ball, offside and they weren’t attractive to watch but very difficult to play against.’

‘As teams we were very close in the league but we were unbelievably different styles,’ adds Pat Nevin

‘They were big, strong, robust and we were more attack-minded and more skilful. I used to think of them almost as robots and that is how you ended up getting by them because they did the same things all the time. But they were a good side who got the better of us a couple of times and the rivalry grew, and these cup games nailed it on the head.’

The original meeting is the mostly forgotten part of this tale but although not reaching the nerve-shredding heights of the two replays that followed, it was still a very good game.

Wednesday took the lead with a header, equalised before the interval by David Speedie (pictured below). Kerry Dixon, the country’s topscorer with 27 goals at that point, had a penalty saved and Chelsea, having already hit the woodwork twice and had an effort cleared off the line, suffered a repeat of both those events in the final minute. The replay in Yorkshire took place only two days later. 

 

‘We were disappointed we had to go back to Hillsborough,’ says goalkeeper Eddie Niedzwiecki, ‘and my main recollection from up there was the crowd.

‘David Speedie came up to me in the warm-up and I said to him did you ever get this at Barnsley (one of his previous clubs) and he said no, did you ever get this at Wrexham! The Kop behind my goal at Sheffield Wednesday was huge and renowned, and their team came at us quickly when the game started and we didn’t match that.’

The attendance was the same size as at the Bridge but with a larger percentage of away fans, despite the short notice. However it was the home support enjoying the night as their team scored two typical headed goals.

‘I don’t remember those but I remember their third - Brian Marwood curled one past me from about 25 yards,’ says Niedzwiecki. ‘Any time when you are a goalkeeper you are disappointed to concede but to concede three in the first half, not much was going right.’

It would have been worse had the referee spotted Mickey Thomas’s retaliatory punch in the goalmouth in response to ceaseless provocation. The Chelsea support close by did not aid with the avoidance of detection when they instantly broke into a ‘There’s only one Mickey Thomas’ song, but the livewire Wales international (pictured below) remained on the pitch. 

 

‘The first thing our manager John Neal said at half-time was, “I don’t know what you hit him for Mickey, what did he say?”’ recounts Thomas. ‘And then John said to us all, “You’ve got yourself into this mess, now get yourself out”.’

‘Coming off at half-time, we were quite despondent,’ says Niedzwiecki, ‘but what riled us was the Wednesday players were quite buoyant. It was like – Can I score? Can I score? – they thought they had the job done. The boss brought Paul Canoville on.’

Canoville, in his autobiography Black and Blue, describes the dressing room as ‘bedlam’ with the likes of Joey Jones and Joe McLaughlin cajoling their colleagues to a better performance.

‘John Neal knew we were upset and sorting it out so he left that alone and went over the set-pieces with Pat and Kerry,’ he reports.

‘It happened now and again that we would concede a few goals,’ points out Nevin. ‘We were an open side and I remember going 3-0 down at Cardiff the season before and still drawing.

Read: Pat Nevin - Assessing the bigger picture

‘We weren’t dreadful against Wednesday but everything went right for them and it wasn’t going right for us, but then Paul came on and got a goal right at the start. My positon was totally different, I was basically centre-midfield for the rest of that game which I loved, I was really free to go wherever and we had so many hard workers. Mickey Thomas was like having two players and Spackers [Spackman] was the same, so we were going to run Wednesday.

‘After that goal went in a bunch of players looked at each other and thought we are going to do them. It is hard to explain why, but we just did.’

 

Chelsea on the attack trying to get back in to the game

Throughout half-time there had been a tremendous show of defiant singing from the Chelsea thousands. That bolstered the belief.

‘It always used to happen, I don’t remember it not happening when we were having a bad time,’ says Nevin. ‘The fans would just sing what looked very inappropriately when we were having a stinker. It was a massive part of getting us back into the game. It is a big old support Sheffield Wednesday have there but this was our fans going berserk.’

‘John Neal, God bless him, made the change at half-time and it was a positive move,’ notes Spackman, ‘and Canners with his pace caused all sorts of problems and we were playing down the hill. When we scored we didn’t think we are going to lose this.’

‘From the restart Joey just launched it from the back towards Kerry,’ Canoville writes in Black and Blue.

‘It was always a case of gambling in case Kerry knocked it on. It fell between me and a central defender and I nicked it off the boy’s foot. The left-foot shot bounced just in front of the keeper and gave him no chance. Eleven seconds after kick-off Wednesday were pegged back to 3-1.’  

It was soon 3-2. ‘Kerry Dixon took that goal awfully well,’ the commentator was later heard to say on the TV highlights.  

 

Thomas takes up the story.

‘Those two goals gave us the momentum and they just disintegrated really. For the equaliser, because I knew Pat so well and he had a great footballing brain and he could see things, that’s why I kept on running when he was attacking with ball. I didn’t really need to shout for it because he knew where I was and played it back into my path and I just struck it into the top corner.’

For Canoville, what was the pinnacle of his career on the pitch was also the night he met his father for the first time in 21 years, although not until after the final whistle. They were both in the stadium though and Canoville’s arm in the air at the end of the match was to acknowledge that fact. It was the young winger who put his side 4-3 ahead with 85 minutes played.

 

‘I knew Kerry liked to take the ball for himself, like all great goalscorers, but I was completely unmarked and running towards the penalty area,’ was Canoville’s recollection. ‘It must have been eight times I called, I was sure he’d look for some angle to shoot for himself, but he passed to me.

‘As it crossed the line I was thinking “Oh my God! This is the winner”.’

The scenes in the away supporters end were incredible and the perfect cup drama was almost complete, but there was one more twist. Inside the final seconds of normal time, Wednesday full-back Mel Sterland was charging into the Chelsea area with the ball but seemingly running out of space when our left-back Doug Rougvie tripped him. 
 

 

‘Doug claims to this day it was me giving the ball away that led to him being caught out of position,’ says Nevin.

‘I wanted to say something to Doug after the foul,’ adds Thomas, ‘because I was going to be able to make a challenge, but obviously we all make mistakes.’

Only Niedzwiecki stood between Wilkinson’s side and 4-4.

‘I had faced Mel Sterland before and seen a number of his penalties and kept telling myself to stand up because he had hit quite a few down the middle, but as any goalkeeper will tell you it is easier said than done. Unfortunately he put it straight down the middle and it nipped my toe.’

 

Wednesday make it 4-4 from the spot

Our Welsh international goalkeeper did play an important part in keeping the score the same in the extra-time that followed, but both teams were by now well and truly drained.

‘Doug giving away the penalty kind of didn’t matter when we were back the dressing room because we had been 3-0 down and got a draw, and they were coming back to our place,’ says Nevin.

Yes, there was disappointment that one of the greatest fight-backs in Chelsea history had not resulted in a win and a place in the semi-finals, but all’s well that ends well and had the team not let the 4-3 lead slip, Stamford Bridge would have been denied another night of high drama.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy reading, those were the days

1 hour ago, erskblue said:

 

We lost 3-2 to Millwall in our FA Cup 4th Round Tie.

On Monday, 4th Feb 1985 at The Bridge

Watched by a crowd of 25,148.

Our scorers: Nigel Spackman 54th and Paul, Canoville 58th mins.

David Speedie missed a penalty in the 88th min.

Next up and no rest ,as we play Sheff Wed, again the Milk Cup on Wed 6th Feb at The Bridge.

Remember Millwall lighting bonfires on the North Terrace

If we can get past Sheff Wed at The Bridge, Hopefully we can go on and win the Milk Cup.

That's what I was hoping back then !

 

A  2-1 win  over Sheff Wed , at last and we left it late ! On Wed, 6th Feb 1985 in the Milk Cup Round 5 ( 2nd Replay)

Our scorers: David Speedie 30th min and Micky, Thomas in the 90th min. They had gone ahead in the 12th min through Shelton. A crowd of 36,395 saw it. Through to our first National Cup Semi Final in ages. We play Sunderland in it . The first leg is away at Roker Park on Wed 13th Feb 85.

On 04/02/2020 at 07:43, chi blue said:

Remember Millwall lighting bonfires on the North Terrace

People talk about that I’ve got no memory of it. Do recall a gap opening up on the terrace and talk of Chelsea being in there ( unlikely). Word was it might have been West Ham or an in-house Millwall ruckus but never got to the bottom of it.

They did appear by the Pelican pre match which got a bit lively.

I used to work with an older Millwall bloke at the time who reckoned that in the hooligan league table went:

1- Millwall

2- West Ham

3- Chelsea

4- Arsenal

5- Spurs

His logic was there wasn’t much between West Ham and Millwall and neither of them had ever been turned over at home.

Edited February 6, 20206 yr by Ewell CFC

Just found this, sorry it's out of match sequence.

Blues v Yellows at The Bridge on  Sat 18th Aug 1984.

That 4-4 at sheff weds  3-0 down at HT and the fealing was quite bleak with the semi final at Sunderland looking impossible .

2 nd half started and PC puts one in the onion bag ,then we are 3-4 up with mins lett when big Dug gives the pen away and its 4-4 ,with SYP call me a cockney w**ker after the pen went in .

like allready said ,went to Work next morning on the bus and quite a few were chin wagging about the game and 4-4 draw. 

13th Feb 1985.

Milk Cup Semi Final 1st Leg away to Sunderland.

We lost 2-0 and Eddie saved a penalty from West.

Attendance of 32,440

Second leg at The Bridge is to be played on Monday, 4th March 1985

Saturday, 16th February 1985 see us play next v Newcastle at The Bridge

Sat, 16th Feb 1985 and a 1-0 win for us v Newcastle at The Bridge.

Darren Wood in the 2nd minute, was our early goal scorer that day.

A crowd of  21,826 saw it

Next up is Coventry City away on Sat 23rd Feb 1985. 

We are 9th in Division 1.

We lost 1-0 to Coventry City on Sat 23rd Feb 1985 .

An early11.30am kick off time.

They scored in the 2nd min and a crowd of 11,430 saw the game at Highfield Road.

We are still 9th in Division 1 after this game.

Our next game is on Saturday, 2nd March 1985 , when we are away to Ipswich.

Then we have Sunderland at The Bridge on Monday 4th March. Milk Cup Semi Final second leg.