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MANCHESTER CITY 2 NEWCASTLE UNITED 1

IT WAS one of the best cup finals Wembley has witnessed in years. It was also one of the most sporting .. on the field as well as off. Fans from both sides welded a tremendous rapport that should augur well for future relationships between Manchester City and Newcastle. The Geordies are more than welcome at Maine Road the sincere hope is that City fans are made just as welcome when they go to Tyneside, particularly for the First Division match later this season.

However, no greater was the sporting spirit epitomised than in the City dressing room after the 2-1 victory with those glorious goals from Peter Barnes and Dennis Tueart. And it was Tueart who sparked it all off by immediately securing a Newcastle shirt to wear for the Trophy presentation and victorious lap of honour.

Ironic that a Tynesider should win the cup from the Tynesiders! That’s why Newcastle-born Tueart immediately took.the League Cup, brimming with champagne, to offer round the disconsolate United player in the Wembley losers’ dressing room-never a happy place on cup final day.

Tueart’s gesture was appreciated by Newcastle players but as City’s England winger said frankly: “What else could I do in the circumstances. They have some wonderful fans up there and I used to be one of ’em as a kid.” However, there was no such gloom in the City camp. The fifth major cup final in seven years - victory in four of them- City’s win saw them become England’s first European qualifiers for next season. They now go into the UEFA Cup with the burning ambition to do better than their last mission in that tournament. It was September, 1972 when the Blues, having finished fourth in the First Division, met Valencia at Maine Road where the Spanish side held on for a 2-2 draw winning the second leg of the first round 2-1. Saturday’s success was a tribute to the magnificent response manager Tony Book received from his players. And the first to greet them with the cup when they went back down that long dark tunnel was the man who didn’t make itEngland midfield star Colin Bell. He met them with glasses of celebration champagne as a battery of television cameras made a permanent record of that most glorious of moments in a soccer player’s career.

But there was drama for City, too. Centre half Dave Watson who almost did not make the final because of a recurrance of the back trouble that had kept him out of the two-legged semi final against Middlesbrough, had a badly gashed left eye, the result of a collision with Alan Gowling when the Newcastle striker caught him with a glancing back header. With Watson on the treatment table, the cameras hovered as Leo Caprio, the club doctor, stitched the wound assisted by physiotherapist Freddie Griffiths. And at the same time Watson was able to bravely reconstruct the incident of how he got the injury to the commentator. Just shows what a Wembley win can do for the spirit! The dressing-rooms at the famous old stadium, reconstructed at a cost of £100,000 apiece, were then filled with Pressmen for the after-match quotes. Flushed with success, City players were only too anxious to give their version of how the match had gone; where it had been won for them, lost to Newcastle.

Still the champagne flowed. Dennis Tueart offered me the cup. “Go on take a swig while there’s some left. It won’t be there much longer,” said the man who clinched the trophy with that breathtaking and truly memorable overhead kick just 60 seconds after half time. Soon the atmosphere calmed. It was time to go. Through those massive doors that bar entry to the famous Wembley tunnel went the City coach. And there to greet them were those lovely City fans. Even the disappointed Newcastle supporters, trudging wearily back to London for that long journey home to the North East, had a salute for the heroes of the day. Like I said . . it was a sporting League Cup Final all the way along the line. And that’s the way it should be. 

Peter Gardner from The City programme 6th March 1976

Manchester City: Corrigan, Keegan, Donachie, Doyle, Watson, Oakes, Barnes, Booth, Royle, Hartford, Tueart. Sub n/u: Clements.

Referee: Jack Taylor from Wolverhampton

Goals: MCFC: Barnes 11, Tueart 47 NUFC: Gowling 35

Crowd: 100,000