So, with all the injuries, you presumably didn’t know who was going to play in the final until quite late.
We went down to London on the Wednesday or Thursday and it was absolutely hosing it down. We were nursing Beat, we were nursing Allan and we really didn’t know what the team was going to be.
Then Bobby Ferguson and Bobby Robson came up with the genius plan of getting the two wide guys [Clive Woods and David Geddis] to try and stop Pat Rice and Sammy Nelson from coming forward, leaving me through the middle against Willie Young and David O’Leary.
It was quite remarkable that they threw that at us within about 48 hours of the game. It worked a treat. The players really responded very well. Ossy took Liam Brady out of the game and Noddy worked his socks off, well, everybody did.
On the day it was very hot and humid. It had rained a lot and the pitch was heavy, but Noddy Talbot’s fitness was absolutely remarkable. We had Noddy and Johnny box-to-box with Johnny getting shots off, so I thought it was pretty decent performance to be honest.
During the game we never thought about them scoring, it didn’t seem possible that they were going to score. I know from speaking to supporters and family members that they thought it was one of those games where we’d do all the pressing and they’d nick it late on with a goal from either Malcolm MacDonald or Frank Stapleton.
But to be fair, Allan Hunter and the Beat shut those two down and the supply wasn’t there because our midfield guys did such a good job shutting it down.
On the other hand, the supply to us up front was great. It could have been a rout. I was stretching in the first half when I hit the bar, it came to me too fast. Maybe I could have done a bit better, but it came on to me too quickly. Then Johnny hit the post twice. It was good stuff. For a final, it was a decent game.
What happens the evening before playing a cup final?
The same thing that happens before any game! It’s amazing, you just go through your routine, you do what you normally do; you have a team meal, you get to you room. Me and Johnny Wark would argue about what we were going to watch on the telly, that’s all we did, just stayed in our rooms. We never took any sleeping tablets or anything and had a decent night’s sleep anyway.
It sounds a little bit blasé to say we just got on with it, but we did. We were very focused on the game. On the coach on the way to the ground everyone was laughing and joking, taking the piss and playing cards. When we got the ground it was great to see all the blue and white. We were absolutely mobbed.
But the moment I’ll never forget is when we walked out of the tunnel. There was a bank of blue and white behind us. You know they talk about the hairs on the back of your neck standing up? My God! It was like a wall of sound which hit you! It was unbelievable. I’m getting goose pimples even thinking about it now. It gave the team an incredible lift.
It was really, really important for us, that was. We were the underdogs and it didn’t half give us a boost.
I can’t overstress enough that the plan that Bobby Ferguson and Bobby Robson put together was genius. We never played that way, we always played two up together. It just completely shut them down because Rice and Nelson were a big force going forward for them.
There wasn’t much in the way of a teamtalk before the game. It was all done by then. All your prep’s done. The only thing you can say is "Please win!!”. Bobby was never one for big teamtalks, he would go through the strengths and weaknesses of the opposition, but both teams knew one another inside out. We just had to play our game, stick to the plan and do our jobs.