Preston 0 Manchester U 2

Pre­ston North End 0 Man­chester Uni­ted 2, Deep­dale Sta­dium, Eng­lish FA Cup Fourth Ro­und, Feb­ruary 5, 1972. Af­ter suf­fer­ing a nar­row and un­ne­ces­sary 2-1 de­feat at the hands of West Brom­wich Al­bion at The Haw­thorns in the Foot­ball Lea­gue, Man­chester Uni­ted be­at Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Pre­ston North End 2-0 at Deep­dale in the FA Cup Fourth Ro­und. Fol­low­ing a goal­less fir­st ha­lf, Alan Gowl­ing notched up a double for the Fir­st Di­vi­sion gi­ant as the stri­ker fou­nd the back of the net twice in the sec­ond frame.

To reach the FA Cup Fourth Ro­und, Pre­ston North End had dis­patched of Sec­ond Di­vi­sion si­de Bris­tol City, whi­le Man­chester Uni­ted had knock­ed out Di­vi­sion One te­am South­ampton af­ter a re­play to get there. In the last meet­ing be­tween the two clubs, Man­chester Uni­ted had beaten Pre­ston 3-1 in an FA Cup Quart­er-Fi­nal Re­play at Old Traf­ford on the 30th of Mar­ch 1966 thanks to a brace either si­de of the break from De­nis Law and a late goal by for­mer Burn­ley wing­er John Con­nelly. Bo­th Pre­ston and Man­chester Uni­ted en­joyed their fair share of op­por­tun­it­ies to score in the fir­st ha­lf at Deep­dale, but neither The Li­ly­whites nor The Reds ma­naged to find the goal in front of a bump­er ho­me crowd of more than 37,000 spec­tat­ors. The ga­me livened up fol­low­ing the re­sump­tion of play, tho­ugh, and the gu­ests from Man­chester ev­entually went in­to a fully de­served 1-0 lead cour­tesy of a clo­se ran­ge goal from young pro­spect Alan Gowl­ing in the 85th min­ute of the FA Cup Fourth Ro­und en­counter. And on­ly a mere three min­utes la­ter in the con­test, Gowl­ing sco­red once ag­ain when he con­ver­ted a flag-kick from The Law Man to make the fi­nal sco­reline read 2-0 in fa­vour of United.

In oth­er FA Cup Fourth Ro­und fix­tures, Birm­ing­ham City edged out Ips­wich To­wn 1-0 be­fore a 40,000 crowd at St Andrew´s thro­ugh a goal from Bob Latch­ford, Der­by Coun­ty thumped Notts Coun­ty 6-0 at Base­ball Gro­und, Ports­mouth be­at Swansea City 2-0 at Frat­ton Park, Spurs over­came Roth­er­ham Uni­ted 2-0 at White Hart Lane, Lei­cester City suf­fered a 2-0 loss ag­ainst Ori­ent at Fil­bert Street, Ever­ton emer­ged 2-1 vic­tors over Walsall at Good­ison Park where Alan Whittle hit the win­ner for the hosts, Sto­ke City were held to a 2-2 draw by Tran­mere Rov­ers at Pren­ton Park, Ful­ham fell 2-0 ag­ainst Hud­dersfield To­wn at Leeds Road, Liver­pool and Leeds Uni­ted played out a 0-0 draw at An­field, Cov­entry City went down 1-0 to Hull City at High­field Road, Middles­brough earned them­selves a 2-2 draw ag­ainst Mill­wall at The Den, Read­ing were de­feated 2-1 by Ar­senal at Elm Park, Sun­der­land drew 1-1 to Car­diff City at Nini­an Park, Here­ford Uni­ted ma­naged a 0-0 draw wi­th West Ham Uni­ted at Edgar Street, whi­le Chel­sea trashed Bol­ton Wan­derers by 3-0 at Stam­ford Bridge.

In the fifth ro­und of the tour­na­ment, Man­chester Uni­ted would now meet the win­ner be­tween Middles­brough and Mill­wall in a re­play at Old Traf­ford. In oth­er draws, Der­by Coun­ty would wel­come Ar­senal to Base­ball Gro­und, Birm­ing­ham City would be lock­ing horns wi­th Ports­mouth at St Andrew´s, Ever­ton would face Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at Good­ison Park, Hud­dersfield To­wn would play either West Ham Uni­ted or Here­ford Uni­ted at Leeds Road, Car­diff City and either Leeds Uni­ted or Liver­pool would square off at Nini­an Park, Hull City would take on either Sto­ke City or Tran­mere Rov­ers away, and Chel­sea would be en­ter­tained by Lon­don neigh­bours Ori­ent at Bris­bane Road. Pre­ston North End Te­am: Alan Kel­ly, John McMa­hon, Dave Con­nor, Jim McNab, John Bird, Alan Spav­in, Ricky Hep­po­lette, Al­ex Spark, Hugh McIlmoyle, Ge­orge Ly­all, Ger­ry In­gram. Sub­stitutes: No­ne. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, Tom­my O’Neil, Fran­cis Burns, Da­vid Sad­ler, Ste­ve Ja­mes, Bob­by Charl­ton, Wil­lie Mor­gan, Alan Gowl­ing, De­nis Law, Bri­an Kidd, Ge­orge Best. Sub­stitutes: None.

Alan Gowling Quickfacts

A some­what un­der­rated for­ward, Alan Gowl­ing amassed 18 goals in 71 Foot­ball Lea­gue ap­pear­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted be­fore the Stock­port born play­er was sold to new­ly re­leg­ated Sec­ond Di­vi­sion club Hud­dersfield To­wn for a bar­gain trans­fer fee of £65,000 at the start of the 1972-73 campaign.

UNITED FEATURES UNITED REPORTS UNITED REVIEWS UNITED STORIES

Front Page