When Bobby Charlton silenced the Kop in the FA Cup

Liverpool 1 Man United 3, January 30, 1960

You’ve got to love the Scousers. When Liverpool were drawn at home to Manchester United in the 4th round of the FA Cup in January 1960 it was immediately declared an all-ticket match, naturally enough as United had already attracted the two largest league attendances of the season, despite being in the bottom half of the table. So the locals duly turned up in their thousands at Anfield to join the long snaking lines for tickets. Many queued for more than twelve hours in grim wintry weather conditions, desperate to see the match. But, as the News Chronicle reported, ‘They felt silly afterwards…5,000 tickets were still unsold when the turnstiles were closed that night’.

That was not the only disappointment for the Merseysiders, then wallowing around in Division Two, just about registering in national consciousness as a slumbering giant of British football, a little while before Bill Shankly’s arrival prodded them back to life, with legendary effect.

I didn’t get to see the match in person but I remember it well from seeing the highlights on television on the BBC’s ‘Sports Special’, fore-runner of Match of the Day. What sticks in the memory was that it was one of the best performances I’d seen on TV by Bobby Charlton, who had been struggling with his form for much of the season, less than a year after his 29 goals had propelled United to the runners-up position in the old First Division, behind Champions Wolves. When the cup draw was announced I was nervous because whatever else one knew about Liverpool, the fame of the Anfield Kop (then still often referred to by its full Boer War appellation of ‘Spion Kop’) loomed large. It was still thought worth a goal start, and United’s form was very uneven to say the least. To speak only of the games I’d seen featured on Sports Special, I’d seen them swing from the brilliance of a 5-1 away win at Forest to the humiliation of a shameful 7-3 defeat at Newcastle United’s St James’ Park, followed soon after by a sobering 2-1 loss at Tottenham. As always, the question was, which United would turn up for the Cup?

Facing the Axe

There was much talk that Bobby Charlton might be dropped, as he had been a few weeks before, but I was pleased when the teams were announced and we had the full, classic W-formation, five-man forward line which had thrilled the world so dramatically the previous season, the first after Munich, scoring a record 103 goals: Bradley, Quixall, Viollet, Charlton, Scanlon. I always loved it when they played together. And now the old gang were back, and Bobby hadn’t been dropped, depite only scoring one goal in the previous dozen matches.

Nevertheless, beyond the question of United’s form there had also been a growing chorus of criticism in sections of the London press because of the rough tackling United were allegedly employing in their sometimes desperate defending, notably from recent acquisition Maurice Setters.

A new weekly football column addressing such issues had been launched in the Daily Sketch, a pretty dreadful rag at the best of times, as I’d see at my Grandmother’s. The whole-page feature was written anonymously under the bizarre title of ‘THE MAN WITH THE CHOPPER’, which inevitably prompts the question, did they really not know the slang meaning of the word? I certainly did, and I was only eleven.Anyway, the aim was to root out everything that was going wrong in the game. For the first in the series, headlined, ‘Babes Win the Boos!’ the Chopper Man analysed United’s defeat at Spurs, singling out Setters, Ronnie Cope and Billy Foulkes for the way they tackled Bobby Smith and Cliff Jones, saying, ‘Here for the first time my axe falls, and falls on Manchester’s tactics’.

Hunt the… hero

Despite their lowly status Liverpool actually had some good players playing that day over half a century ago, such as Ronnie Moran, later famous as part of the legendary Anfield ‘Boot Room’ coaching staff, left-winger Alan A’Court, centre-forward Dave Hickson and the cunning play-maker Joe Melia. There was also the youthful Roger Hunt, a national hero six years later as part of England’s World Cup winning squad alongside Bobby Charlton, whose debut at Old Trafford in 1956 an admiring Hunt had witnessed ( a fact Bobby only learned some fifty years later).In those days Liverpool still wore their traditional, pre-Shankly outfits of red shirt and white shorts, obliging United to wear their second choice, all-white strip, which always evoked images of the great Real Madrid, on their way to a fifth European Cup that year (as witnessed by Alex Ferguson at Hampden Park the following May).

FA Cup 4th Round: Liverpool 1 Manchester United 3 (At Anfield)

Roared on by the Kop, Liverpool dominated the opening stages of the match and, as the Guardian reported,

‘United’s defence was stretched to the utmost by the darting Hunt, the crafty Melia, and a Liverpool side generally faster on ball and man. But the home side was denied a goal’… (1 February, 1960)

Hunt had a shot kicked off the line by Setters in the opening minute and United were struggling to get out of their own half. Then suddenly Bobby Charlton changed the whole mood of the game:

‘He produced a surging, shattering run that swept him gracefully yet savagely past Wheeler and Mortimer before he pulled his shot away from the floundering Slater. You could have heard a pin drop in the Kop, where the great roar that had been urging on Liverpool suddenly caught in their throats’. (Daily Mirror: 1 February, 1960)

The Guardian reporter, W.R.Taylor, reckoned the Liverpool players tended to keep the ball too close, eliciting shouts of ‘Sling it abaht!’ from the stands. It was in contrast to the ‘wonderful service of long passes on the left’ that United’s winger Albert Scanlon received. Taylor did think some of the fouls on Hickson (‘ a marked man in more senses than one’) were ‘more unnecessary than usual’.

Derek Wallis in the Mirror perhaps had a more balanced view, commenting that :

‘Some of United’s tackling, admittedly heavy at times, angered the crowd, but after all this was a cup-tie and (Manager Matt) Busby’s men were not there to make themselves popular…only to win.’

Encouraged by their opening goal United were by now playing very effectively in defence, particularly Cope, Setters and Shay Brennan, at left half. Nevertheless, it was a foul by Cope that let the ‘Pool back into the game, compounded when Harry Gregg fumbled the resulting free-kick and,

‘Wheeler hammered the ball in without hesitation and the ground erupted in a frenzy of sound’ (Guardian).

However, Charlton took matters into his own hands again, producing what the Mirror called ‘another killer run’ and scored again after Warren Bradley’s return had flicked off a defender’. The ball landed at his feet and his powerful shot gave Slater in goal no chance.

Second half

Charlton had ‘another cannonball’ saved and a lob was headed clear soon after the interval and it was all United in the second half. Nevertheless, it took a magnificent goal from diminutive right-winger Warren Bradley ( a school teacher in another life) to settle the tie:

‘One of the fiercest shots of the day was produced by Bradley when he scored United’s third goal. Jinking in from the right he shot powerfully when Liverpool probably were expecting him to centre and the ball hurtled in off the underside of the bar. The wailing of females on the Kop sounded like a Greek chorus reached a pitch of despair as Melia missed an A’Court centre, and continued to the end.’ (Guardian)

Post Match comments

All commentators agreed that United thoroughly deserved their victory, with the sober Daily Telegraph headlining their Monday Soccer Commentary on the weekend’s FA Cup games:

‘Manchester United Back on Wembley Trail: Bobby Charlton Regains form’

”(United) captured much of the pre-Munich poise and won convincingly. What must have pleased United’s supporters most was the return to shooting form of the controversial Bobby Charlton who scored two made-to-measure goals. Charlton in this mood is still the most superb marksman of them all.’ (Daily Telegraph, 1 February)

The Guardian showered the re-juvenated Bobby with similar praise, concluding that United’s class had told in the end, as Charlton recovered form and confidence:

‘Charlton, after depressing himself for many weeks because of his lost form, regained his touch at Anfield and Merseyside suffered accordingly. In the clinging mud and incessant rain his powerful bursts left opponents floundering and he was rewarded with two goals’.

The Mirror’s headlines said it all:

”BIG SHOT BOBBY AGAIN!

‘Kop’ stunned by that Charlton double act’

So, undoubtedly a good day for the Red Devils, but sadly it was not the turning of the tide some people hoped for. United were limply knocked out of the FA Cup in the next round by Sheffield Wednesday at Old Trafford, going down 1-0. Nor were things much better in the league, where United finished 7th, with only intermittent signs of recovery.

Nevertheless, it’s worth reminding ourselves that this FA Cup match in 1960 came only two years after the Munich Air Crash, whose anniversay came the following week. Those writers who praised Bobby Charlton were to be proved right in the longer term, in that so much of what United achieved later in the decade revolved round him. Like many young players he had a crisis of confidence, and he struggled to find his best form for months. His story, tinged with tragedy as it is, nonetheless should be a constant reminder to supporters: give youngsters a chance, have patience, let them develop without the pressure to deliver all the time, every game.