Deane 3, Agana 3

[Revolution]

Indeed it was .

Quick quiz for you . The brother of a bit of a Blades legend was playing for Newcastle at the time . Who was it ?

Do you mean Darren Bradshaw? He hadn't yet signed for them when we played them.

 

[Revolution]

Great post and weirdly very good timing so I can share this...

This picture popped up a couple of days ago on the Worcester City 'trip down memory lane' facebook page.. from the 83/84 season when we played Weymouth at home.

View attachment 44330

Might need to squint a bit but the eagle eyed among you should spot in the background a Blade to be in the making (not me haha, already hearing the thousand S2 voices piping up in my head!)

Weymouth also had a young Andy Townsend as well at that same time.

Tony Agana in his Weymouth days!

 

[Revolution]

remember it well, dont think ive ever seen a game elsewhere where 2 got hattricks. was there for the northampton game aswell, pretty sure benno saved a pen that night, good atmosphere as remember northampton had a good following that night

He did. He saved Paul Culpin's penalty in the last minute. He then saved another one on the Saturday against Brentford (they were awarded 2 - Andy Sinton scored the other).

We had 10 penalties awarded against us that season. Benstead saved 4 of them.

 

[Revolution]

Very true, though a barrage attendances across football were very low back then.

We played Chelsea in the cup a year or so later, and the previous game they had played in front of a similarly low crowd, in the top flight.

1992. They had 33,000 for the Cup game having had 7,100 attend their league game against Southampton 3 days earlier. They were the biggest fair weather fans going them (and now they only get fair weather).

 

[WoodMillBlade]

I was 10. Bloody hell I can remember them times.
Brilliant season and great times under Basset.

Best part of that era was standing!

 

[alcoblade]

1992. They had 33,000 for the Cup game having had 7,100 attend their league game against Southampton 3 days earlier. They were the biggest fair weather fans going them (and now they only get fair weather).

That’s the one.

“Twats, the lot of ‘em”

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

1992. They had 33,000 for the Cup game having had 7,100 attend their league game against Southampton 3 days earlier. They were the biggest fair weather fans going them (and now they only get fair weather).

Why was there such a big upturn for the cup match?

 

[alcoblade]

Why was there such a big upturn for the cup match?

It was the opposition.

But seriously;

A) they were fickle fuckers

B) the midweek game was cold and rainy, and in those days pay on the day was the way. Stamford bridge was largely an uncovered shithole.

C) we took a good few thousand.

 

[PeterNdlovu081]

It was the opposition.

But seriously;

A) they were fickle fuckers

B) the midweek game was cold and rainy, and in those days pay on the day was the way. Stamford bridge was largely an uncovered shithole.

C) we took a good few thousand.

It doesn't make any sense.

Maybe the cup was a lot more valued back then.

 

[alcoblade]

It doesn't make any sense.

Maybe the cup was a lot more valued back then.

That’s certainly true. I recall winning the cup wasn’t far behind winning the league in terms of stature, back then.

 

[SouthEssexBlade]

It doesn't make any sense.

Maybe the cup was a lot more valued back then.

It was more valued. Indeed it was still the case that an FA Cup final win was the most prized trophy in football for most fans. It wouldn't be for too much longer as the European Cup got a revamp and the premier league was formed a few years later.

 

[Liverpool blade]

It was the opposition.

But seriously;

A) they were fickle fuckers

B) the midweek game was cold and rainy, and in those days pay on the day was the way. Stamford bridge was largely an uncovered shithole.

C) we took a good few thousand.

I remember going to the Chelsea game on the train and seeing loads of blades fans on the underground!!. UTB

 

[JJ Sefton]

30 years ago today, a rather significant game took place. It featured an event that had only happened twice before in United’s history – most recently in 1926 – and hasn’t happened since. Happily, the game was filmed, and our goals from that game – all six of them - can be seen on Youtube.

The game was more than that, however. It was also a sign of good things to come. One of the early signs that the club was going places after more than a decade outside the top flight. It’s worth remembering, and I thought I’d write about it on its 30th anniversary.

I am talking, of course, about Sheffield United 6 Chester City 1. Deane 3, Agana 3. The double hat-trick game.

I will try to set the scene. Dave Bassett had come to the club in January 1988 with United in a lot of trouble at the wrong end of the table. Billy McEwan had been fired after post-Christmas results of 1-3, 1-4 and 0-5, with the infamous drubbing at home to Oldham – still the worst performance I have seen from a Blades team – proving the final straw for Reg Brealey.


Bassett did a lot of wheeling and dealing, but ultimately failed to save the club from relegation, as we lost 2-1 on aggregate to Bristol City in the playoffs. He signed some decent young players but others were inadequate and there weren’t enough goals in the team – Richard Cadette was a major disappointment, Peter Beagrie was out of form, and Clive Mendonca was given up on too early. The defence was also poor, with Andy Leaning not good enough as first choice keeper, and we only managed one clean sheet away, against bottom placed Huddersfield on the last day of the season. We simply did not win enough when it counted, with a late season scoreless draw against WBA and narrow defeats at Birmingham and Reading being particularly costly.

In the close season, Bassett stabilised the defence with the permanent signing of keeper Graham Benstead, who had been on loan from Norwich at the end of the previous season, but the back 4 – Martin Pike at left back, Paul Stancliffe and Brian Smith at centre back, and Cliff Powell at right back – was largely the same as the defence that finished the previous season. Similarly, Simon Webster and Mark Todd, both veterans of the relegation season, started the season in the middle of the park.

It was up front and on the flanks that big changes were made. Cadette was sold to Division 3 rivals Brentford, top scorer Tony Philliskirk went to Oldham, old stagers Morris and Withe went to Scarborough and Huddersfield respectively, and Beagrie went to Stoke for just over 200 grand. That left us with Tong Agana, who’d scored a last minute winner on his debut against Barnsley the previous season but had been dogged by injury thereafter, and Peter Duffield, who had played a bit part but not really impressed.

In came Francis Joseph, a centre forward reuniting with his ex-Wimbledon boss after an unproductive year at Reading; Ian Bryson, a left winger with 200 games behind him in Scotland for Kilmarnock when he combined a part time contract with working on a farm; Alan Roberts, a right winger from Darlington; and John Francis, picked up cheaply from Emley, Completing the new look pool of forwards was Brian Deane, a gangly kid who’d got a dozen goals in a couple of seasons at Doncaster and who had impressed Bassett when he’d gone to check out Dave Cusack.

We started well. We won 3-1 at Reading on the opening day, with Big Stan scoring from a corner and Joseph putting us 2-0 up before limping off to be replaced by Agana – more significant than it seemed at the time. Michael Gilkes got one back for Reading but Deane made the points safe with a goal 10 minutes from time. We did even better in the first home game against Bristol Rovers, falling behind to an Ian Holloway goal but coming back to lead to 2-1 at half time and going on win 4-1, with Bryson scoring from 2 headers, Roberts dribbling into the box to score, and Agana scoring from a knock down by Deane. It was direct, but we were using the wings a lot and were essentially playing 4-2-4 when we had the ball. We also dispatched Hartlepool 4-2 on aggregate in the first round of the league cup, though we’d chucked away a 2 goal lead up there via a daft own goal by Powell and a penalty, and we’d needed extra time to see them off in the second leg.

Our third league game had seen our first setback - we dominated the game at Gillingham but Ron Hillyard played a blinder and we lost 2-1 with the Gills scoring from their only serious attacks. So with 3 games gone we were in fourth place, 2 places and one point behind second place Chester City, who visited us on 17 September 1988. I don’t know whether our first defeat had put people off this game, but despite the sunny warmish day our lowest league crowd of the season, 8,675, was in attendance.

The teams lined up as follows:

United: Benstead, Wilder, Pike, Webster, Stancliffe, Smith, Duffield, Todd, Agana, Deane, Bryson.

Chester City: Stewart, Glean, Woodthorpe, Hinnigan, Able, Lightfoot, Jakub, Barrow, Benjamin, Johnson, Newhouse.

8 of the Blades first 11 had started every game. The exceptions were right wing – where Duffield was playing his second game after Roberts had started the first 2; centre forward, where Joseph was still not fit to start and Agana had taken his place since coming on at Reading; and right back, where we’d used 3 different players in 3 league games. Cliff Powell had managed to get himself injured, so Chris Wilder had played at number 2 against Bristol Rovers, and Andy Barnsley took the shirt against Gillingham. Wilder was back today, though.

Chester featured former Blade Ian Benjamin at centre forward, with 16 year old Aidan Newhouse alongside him. Gary Bennett, notorious in Sheffield for his horrific leg breaking tackle on Ian Knight at Hillsborough in 1987, was on the bench.

United put Chester to the sword in the first half and, to my memory, dominated possession, and by half time Deano had helped himself to a hat-trick. His goals went in as follows:

7 minutes: Deane rose at the back post to head in Martin Pike’s corner. Simplicity itself.

27 minutes: Probably the best of the bunch: United passing through the middle, and Agana gets the ball in the D outside the area. He pushes the ball to the left corner of the area where Deane runs in, muscles past a defender, and sends a deft chip into the top right corner. There is a picture of this goal in a programme one or two games later, which shows the ball entering the net and my Dad and I, standing near the bottom right of the Kop, starting to raise our arms in celebration.

37 minutes: United played the ball down the wing and Wilder, on the overlap and drifting inside, cut into the area and swung in a perfect low cross that Deane finished with a diving header, the ball going to the keeper’s right.

Just before half time, Deane had a great chance for his fourth, but put the ball wide from about 8 yards out when it seemed easier for him to hit the target. Still, 3-0 at the break and we weren’t complaining.

Harry McNally must have yelled at Chester at half time, as they came at us in the first 15 minutes of the second half and got their reward on 55 minutes when Graham Lightfoot managed to hook a corner into the roof of the net. 3-1. I was (and still am) scarred by the Reading game in 1986-7, when we were 3-0 up after an hour and it was 3-3 5 minutes later, so I was worried all of a sudden. However, United took the pressure off, and more, with 3 more goals:

57 minutes: The big hoof: Deane flicked on a long Benstead clearance and Agana took the ball on. He looked to have been forced wide by a defender but he hit a great shot from the left edge of the 6 yard box across the keeper and the ball hit the net just inside the right post.

83 minutes: Deane had been withdrawn for John Francis by this point in the game, and Francis had a big hand in the fifth. He chased another long clearance coming down the right of the penalty area, beat the defender to the ball and played a short pass to Agana, who rolled the ball into the left hand corner of the net from the right edge of the 6 yard box.

89 minutes: Francis again the provider: he got the ball in the middle of the Chester half, turned and played a diagonal pass to the onrushing Agana who took the ball on into the area and despite the attentions of a defender once again hit the ball across the keeper into the bottom right corner.

6-1 – the biggest win I’d ever seen, and the first time I’d seen us score six since 1984. Plus 2 hat-tricks in the same game, one in each half. Very neat. We hadn’t done that since New Year’s Day 1926, when Harry Johnson and David Mercer both got 3 as we beat Cardiff 11-2 in the first season after they changed the offside law.

For the record, Deano got the matchball – he claimed it as he got his treble first! He posted a picture of all 4 of his hat-trick balls on Twitter in February: Brian Smith, Paul Stancliffe and Graham Benstead’s autographs can all be seen on the Chester ball.

8,675 proved to be the lowest crowd of the season. Not only that, but every single league crowd at the Lane in the 30 years since that day has exceeded it. There were nearly 12,000 there 3 days later to see us thrash Northampton 4-0 and go top, and we stayed there for the next 2 league games, winning 4-1 at Brentford the following Saturday and beating promotion rivals Wolves 2-0 at home on 1 October, with Deane and Agana scoring once each and Steve Bull hardly getting a kick. Throw in our 3-0 thumping of First Division Newcastle in the League Cup earlier that week, and that’s as good a 5 game run of performances as we’d had in years.

I was 15 when that game took place. I’m 45 now. Two thirds of my life, and over a thousand United games, have taken place since then. I still look back on that game with affection. Like the Gillingham game in September 2016, it hinted at good things to come. Agana’s strength pace and accurate shooting, Deane’s skill in the air and surprisingly deft touch at times, Bassett’s commitment to wing play and fast, attacking football…all of these things were on show, and would carry the team and us fans a long way, back to the top flight and, eventually, into a new league, where Deano carved his name in history with the first goal in that league. Good times, well worth remembering and celebrating.

I have the full match to go online at some stage, watch this space.

 

[Pollingtonblade]

We seemed to hammer a lot of teams that season. The only disappointing thing (and it’s nit picking) was we didn’t take the title.

Out of the 4 relegated team Gillingham, Chesterfield, Southend and Aldershot 2 did the double over us (Chesterfield and Southend) and we lost away to the other 2 away. That’s probably why.

 

[TTMeysh]

I was one of the 8,700 (like a lot of attendances around that time, I'd say there were more in the ground than that btw).

I'd been packed on the previous Tuesday (still bitter about it now), and the six goals cheered me up. Very slightly.

 

[spongebobblade]

Fantastic post Revolution. Remember it like it was yesterday. 14 goals in 3 league games! Now THATS scoring for fun. It was the beginning of the best strike force at the Lane that I can remember. A shame Agana struggled with injuries. I’ll never forget the pair of them absolutely terrorising top flight Norwich on there home turf. Never seen a home crowd and players shit themselves so much!

 

[wavy-blade]

I was one of the 8,700 (like a lot of attendances around that time, I'd say there were more in the ground than that btw).

I'd been packed on the previous Tuesday (still bitter about it now), and the six goals cheered me up. Very slightly.

Yes those were the days when you could jump the turnstile for a couple of quid to the steward , and also go through the turnstile with children as long as you pick them up , you could take them through , me dad was lifting me up at 15 LOL .
I bet there was double that attendance with all the fiddling going off at that time .

 

[1973Blade]

Probably the last time we will ever play Chester City at Bramall Lane.

 

[1973Blade]

Ehh what a day that was , I got married that day and as we reached the reception someone told me the score and the scores , made my day that did , a bit cheesed off I had missed it , but the start of great times with Deane Agana , Harry , and the rest of the team , who'd have thought that feisty left back with spikey blonde hair would have ended up our manager !

Happy 30th wedding anniversary

 

[alcoblade]

I was one of the 8,700 (like a lot of attendances around that time, I'd say there were more in the ground than that btw).

I'd been packed on the previous Tuesday (still bitter about it now), and the six goals cheered me up. Very slightly.

Yep, good point. Attendances were very obviously fiddled / flawed back in the day of cash turnstiles and very low season ticket sales.

 

[DifferentClass]

who'd have thought that feisty left back with spikey blonde hair would have ended up our manager !

*spiky ginger hair

 

[3-GBlade]

If you talk to people today who say they were there it was a crowd of Wensdi levels there - at least 35000

 

[Revolution]

Probably the last time we will ever play Chester City at Bramall Lane.

We played them later that season in that seasons version of the checkatrade trophy: they drew 2-2, which ruined a run of 11 straight victories at home in league and cup. I don't think we ever played them again, and we never will - the Chester in the National
league is a Phoenix club.

 

[Revolution]

Can Pinchy be barred from this thread.

What a game and season, I’ve often said that because we went up to the top flight the year after this promotion season isn’t discussed as often but was very important and the grand scheme of those few years.

Sometimes I think I don't have a favourite season, but more a favourite pair of seasons: the back to back promotion seasons. It's so hard to say which one in prefer.

Bassett did a fantastic job in both those seasons: one of these days I will write an account of all of the moves he made and their impact. He took us to the First Division on a shoestring, rebuilding the side as he went. The only managerial performance that comes close in my lifetime IMHO is Wilder in 2016-7.

 

[Pollingtonblade]

Sometimes I think I don't have a favourite season, but more a favourite pair of seasons: the back to back promotion seasons. It's so hard to say which one in prefer.

Bassett did a fantastic job in both those seasons: one of these days I will write an account of all of the moves he made and their impact. He took us to the First Division on a shoestring, rebuilding the side as he went. The only managerial performance that comes close in my lifetime IMHO is Wilder in 2016-7.

Not only them two but the 3 after we’re pretty good as well.

 

[Gannon's perm]

If you talk to people today who say they were there it was a crowd of Wensdi levels there - at least 35000

I was 11 and this was this season I started going regularly. I was grounded for this game and my punishment was my dad wouldn't take me. Have regretted ever since. Still waiting to see a double hatrick.

I was among the other massive crowd for the infamous port vale game though

 

[Piffle and Tosh]

30 years ago today, a rather significant game took place. It featured an event that had only happened twice before in United’s history – most recently in 1926 – and hasn’t happened since. Happily, the game was filmed, and our goals from that game – all six of them - can be seen on Youtube.

The game was more than that, however. It was also a sign of good things to come. One of the early signs that the club was going places after more than a decade outside the top flight. It’s worth remembering, and I thought I’d write about it on its 30th anniversary.

I am talking, of course, about Sheffield United 6 Chester City 1. Deane 3, Agana 3. The double hat-trick game.

I will try to set the scene. Dave Bassett had come to the club in January 1988 with United in a lot of trouble at the wrong end of the table. Billy McEwan had been fired after post-Christmas results of 1-3, 1-4 and 0-5, with the infamous drubbing at home to Oldham – still the worst performance I have seen from a Blades team – proving the final straw for Reg Brealey.


Bassett did a lot of wheeling and dealing, but ultimately failed to save the club from relegation, as we lost 2-1 on aggregate to Bristol City in the playoffs. He signed some decent young players but others were inadequate and there weren’t enough goals in the team – Richard Cadette was a major disappointment, Peter Beagrie was out of form, and Clive Mendonca was given up on too early. The defence was also poor, with Andy Leaning not good enough as first choice keeper, and we only managed one clean sheet away, against bottom placed Huddersfield on the last day of the season. We simply did not win enough when it counted, with a late season scoreless draw against WBA and narrow defeats at Birmingham and Reading being particularly costly.

In the close season, Bassett stabilised the defence with the permanent signing of keeper Graham Benstead, who had been on loan from Norwich at the end of the previous season, but the back 4 – Martin Pike at left back, Paul Stancliffe and Brian Smith at centre back, and Cliff Powell at right back – was largely the same as the defence that finished the previous season. Similarly, Simon Webster and Mark Todd, both veterans of the relegation season, started the season in the middle of the park.

It was up front and on the flanks that big changes were made. Cadette was sold to Division 3 rivals Brentford, top scorer Tony Philliskirk went to Oldham, old stagers Morris and Withe went to Scarborough and Huddersfield respectively, and Beagrie went to Stoke for just over 200 grand. That left us with Tong Agana, who’d scored a last minute winner on his debut against Barnsley the previous season but had been dogged by injury thereafter, and Peter Duffield, who had played a bit part but not really impressed.

In came Francis Joseph, a centre forward reuniting with his ex-Wimbledon boss after an unproductive year at Reading; Ian Bryson, a left winger with 200 games behind him in Scotland for Kilmarnock when he combined a part time contract with working on a farm; Alan Roberts, a right winger from Darlington; and John Francis, picked up cheaply from Emley, Completing the new look pool of forwards was Brian Deane, a gangly kid who’d got a dozen goals in a couple of seasons at Doncaster and who had impressed Bassett when he’d gone to check out Dave Cusack.

We started well. We won 3-1 at Reading on the opening day, with Big Stan scoring from a corner and Joseph putting us 2-0 up before limping off to be replaced by Agana – more significant than it seemed at the time. Michael Gilkes got one back for Reading but Deane made the points safe with a goal 10 minutes from time. We did even better in the first home game against Bristol Rovers, falling behind to an Ian Holloway goal but coming back to lead to 2-1 at half time and going on win 4-1, with Bryson scoring from 2 headers, Roberts dribbling into the box to score, and Agana scoring from a knock down by Deane. It was direct, but we were using the wings a lot and were essentially playing 4-2-4 when we had the ball. We also dispatched Hartlepool 4-2 on aggregate in the first round of the league cup, though we’d chucked away a 2 goal lead up there via a daft own goal by Powell and a penalty, and we’d needed extra time to see them off in the second leg.

Our third league game had seen our first setback - we dominated the game at Gillingham but Ron Hillyard played a blinder and we lost 2-1 with the Gills scoring from their only serious attacks. So with 3 games gone we were in fourth place, 2 places and one point behind second place Chester City, who visited us on 17 September 1988. I don’t know whether our first defeat had put people off this game, but despite the sunny warmish day our lowest league crowd of the season, 8,675, was in attendance.

The teams lined up as follows:

United: Benstead, Wilder, Pike, Webster, Stancliffe, Smith, Duffield, Todd, Agana, Deane, Bryson.

Chester City: Stewart, Glean, Woodthorpe, Hinnigan, Able, Lightfoot, Jakub, Barrow, Benjamin, Johnson, Newhouse.

8 of the Blades first 11 had started every game. The exceptions were right wing – where Duffield was playing his second game after Roberts had started the first 2; centre forward, where Joseph was still not fit to start and Agana had taken his place since coming on at Reading; and right back, where we’d used 3 different players in 3 league games. Cliff Powell had managed to get himself injured, so Chris Wilder had played at number 2 against Bristol Rovers, and Andy Barnsley took the shirt against Gillingham. Wilder was back today, though.

Chester featured former Blade Ian Benjamin at centre forward, with 16 year old Aidan Newhouse alongside him. Gary Bennett, notorious in Sheffield for his horrific leg breaking tackle on Ian Knight at Hillsborough in 1987, was on the bench.

United put Chester to the sword in the first half and, to my memory, dominated possession, and by half time Deano had helped himself to a hat-trick. His goals went in as follows:

7 minutes: Deane rose at the back post to head in Martin Pike’s corner. Simplicity itself.

27 minutes: Probably the best of the bunch: United passing through the middle, and Agana gets the ball in the D outside the area. He pushes the ball to the left corner of the area where Deane runs in, muscles past a defender, and sends a deft chip into the top right corner. There is a picture of this goal in a programme one or two games later, which shows the ball entering the net and my Dad and I, standing near the bottom right of the Kop, starting to raise our arms in celebration.

37 minutes: United played the ball down the wing and Wilder, on the overlap and drifting inside, cut into the area and swung in a perfect low cross that Deane finished with a diving header, the ball going to the keeper’s right.

Just before half time, Deane had a great chance for his fourth, but put the ball wide from about 8 yards out when it seemed easier for him to hit the target. Still, 3-0 at the break and we weren’t complaining.

Harry McNally must have yelled at Chester at half time, as they came at us in the first 15 minutes of the second half and got their reward on 55 minutes when Graham Lightfoot managed to hook a corner into the roof of the net. 3-1. I was (and still am) scarred by the Reading game in 1986-7, when we were 3-0 up after an hour and it was 3-3 5 minutes later, so I was worried all of a sudden. However, United took the pressure off, and more, with 3 more goals:

57 minutes: The big hoof: Deane flicked on a long Benstead clearance and Agana took the ball on. He looked to have been forced wide by a defender but he hit a great shot from the left edge of the 6 yard box across the keeper and the ball hit the net just inside the right post.

83 minutes: Deane had been withdrawn for John Francis by this point in the game, and Francis had a big hand in the fifth. He chased another long clearance coming down the right of the penalty area, beat the defender to the ball and played a short pass to Agana, who rolled the ball into the left hand corner of the net from the right edge of the 6 yard box.

89 minutes: Francis again the provider: he got the ball in the middle of the Chester half, turned and played a diagonal pass to the onrushing Agana who took the ball on into the area and despite the attentions of a defender once again hit the ball across the keeper into the bottom right corner.

6-1 – the biggest win I’d ever seen, and the first time I’d seen us score six since 1984. Plus 2 hat-tricks in the same game, one in each half. Very neat. We hadn’t done that since New Year’s Day 1926, when Harry Johnson and David Mercer both got 3 as we beat Cardiff 11-2 in the first season after they changed the offside law.

For the record, Deano got the matchball – he claimed it as he got his treble first! He posted a picture of all 4 of his hat-trick balls on Twitter in February: Brian Smith, Paul Stancliffe and Graham Benstead’s autographs can all be seen on the Chester ball.

8,675 proved to be the lowest crowd of the season. Not only that, but every single league crowd at the Lane in the 30 years since that day has exceeded it. There were nearly 12,000 there 3 days later to see us thrash Northampton 4-0 and go top, and we stayed there for the next 2 league games, winning 4-1 at Brentford the following Saturday and beating promotion rivals Wolves 2-0 at home on 1 October, with Deane and Agana scoring once each and Steve Bull hardly getting a kick. Throw in our 3-0 thumping of First Division Newcastle in the League Cup earlier that week, and that’s as good a 5 game run of performances as we’d had in years.

I was 15 when that game took place. I’m 45 now. Two thirds of my life, and over a thousand United games, have taken place since then. I still look back on that game with affection. Like the Gillingham game in September 2016, it hinted at good things to come. Agana’s strength pace and accurate shooting, Deane’s skill in the air and surprisingly deft touch at times, Bassett’s commitment to wing play and fast, attacking football…all of these things were on show, and would carry the team and us fans a long way, back to the top flight and, eventually, into a new league, where Deano carved his name in history with the first goal in that league. Good times, well worth remembering and celebrating.

What a memory you have Sir
all I remember is that I was there .

 

[HodgysBrokenThumb]

It was more valued. Indeed it was still the case that an FA Cup final win was the most prized trophy in football for most fans. It wouldn't be for too much longer as the European Cup got a revamp and the premier league was formed a few years later.

Gave that a like, even though it is a rubbish development. There is nothing to beat a proper competitive cup competition.

 

[Revolution]

It doesn't make any sense.

Maybe the cup was a lot more valued back then.

To give you another example around the same time, we played Barnsley at home in the 5th round of the FA Cup in February 1990 and at home in the League in March 1990.

The attendance for the Cup game was 33,113. It was about 16,000 for the League game.

The Cup was a really big deal.

 

[RammyBlade]

Thanks for the memories of that - it was a magical season. Looking again it makes you realisehow good a finisher Agana was - quick and physical