Manchester U 1 Everton 0

Ron Atkinson

Man­chester Uni­ted 1 Ever­ton 0, Wen­bley Sta­dium, Eng­lish FA Cup Fi­nal, May 18, 1985. Five times FA Cup win­ners Man­chester Uni­ted de­feated al­ready crow­ned Fir­st Di­vi­sion Cham­pi­ons Ever­ton 1-0 at Wemb­ley cour­tesy of Nor­man White­side who net­ted the win­ner when he be­at Ne­ville Southall wi­th a beau­ti­fully curled shot in the 20th min­ute of extra-time. 

On their way to Wemb­ley Sta­dium, Man­chester Uni­ted had dis­pensed wi­th Third Di­vi­sion op­pos­i­tion AFC Bourne­mouth, Di­vi­sion One club Cov­entry City, Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Black­burn Rov­ers, and Fir­st Di­vi­sion te­ams West Ham Uni­ted and Liver­pool. Ever­ton, mean­while, had knock­ed out Lea­gue Di­vi­sion Two out­fit Leeds Uni­ted, Third Di­vi­sion Don­caster Rov­ers, Al­li­ance Pre­mier Lea­gue te­am Telford Uni­ted, and Di­vi­sion One clubs Ips­wich To­wn and Luton To­wn. The Mer­sey­siders had beaten Aus­tri­an gi­ants Rap­id Vi­enna 3-1 at Fey­enoord Sta­dium in Rot­ter­dam in the UEFA Cup Win­ners’ Cup Fi­nal just three days earli­er and The Blues were fa­vour­ites to de­feat Man­chester Uni­ted in the FA Cup Fi­nal. At Wemb­ley, Man­chester Uni­ted and Re­pub­lic of Ire­land de­fender Kev­in Mor­an etched his name in­to the foot­ball his­tory books by be­com­ing the fir­st ever play­er to be han­ded his march­ing or­ders dur­ing an FA Cup Fi­nal when the Dub­liner was con­tro­ver­sially shown the red card by mat­ch of­fi­cial Pe­ter Wil­lis for a pro­fes­sion­al foul on Ever­ton mid­fielder Pe­ter Re­id in the 75th min­ute of the tie. But des­pite be­ing down to ten men, Man­chester Uni­ted ma­naged to edge out The Tof­fee­men by the nar­row mar­gin of 1-0 thro­ugh a late goal from Nor­man White­side in the 110th min­ute of play.

Fol­low­ing the early skir­mishes, Pe­ter Re­id came clo­se to scor­ing for The Ever­to­ni­ans wi­th some ten min­utes gone of the fir­st pe­riod when his power­ful shot from out­side the eight­een-yard area was de­flec­ted on to the left post by for­mer Good­ison Park de­fender John Gid­man. In the sec­ond pe­riod, Man­chester Uni­ted were knock­ing on the door and Ron Atkinson´s troops al­most went in front a couple of min­utes pa­st the hour ma­rk as Nor­man White­side latched onto a mag­ni­fi­cent thro­ugh ball de­livered by Welsh in­ter­na­tion­al Ma­rk Hug­hes, but his at­tempt was ex­cel­lently bloc­ked by Ever­ton shot stop­per Ne­ville Southall. Then, wi­th the Wemb­ley clock tick­ing down to­wards the end of the ha­lf, Kev­in Mor­an was giv­en the red card by the ref­er­ee for a some­what reck­less chal­lenge on Re­id fif­teen min­utes from full-time. But wi­th on­ly ten min­utes re­maining of ex­tra-time, Man­chester Uni­ted ul­ti­mately fou­nd the back of the net when Hug­hes sent an­oth­er clev­er ball to White­side who stormed goal­wards and pla­ced a curl­ing ef­fort ar­ound Bel­gi­um born Ever­ton de­fender Pat Van Den Hauwe and bey­ond the phys­ic­al reach of Southall to seal a 1-0 win over How­ard Kendall´s Tof­fees. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ga­ry Bai­ley, John Gid­man, Ar­thur Al­bis­ton, Nor­man White­side, Paul Mc­Grath, Kev­in Mor­an, Gor­don Stra­chan, Bry­an Rob­son, Ma­rk Hug­hes, Frank Stapleton, Jes­per Ol­sen. Sub­sti­tute: Mi­ke Dux­bury. Ever­ton Te­am: Ne­ville Southall, Ga­ry Stevens, Pat Van Den Hauwe, Kev­in Ratcliffe, Derek Mount­field, Pe­ter Re­id, Tre­vor Ste­ven, Graeme Sharp, Andy Gray, Paul Bracewell, Kev­in Shee­dy. Sub­sti­tute: Alan Harper.

 

Norman Whiteside Quickfacts

Nor­man White­side was han­ded his fir­st Fir­st Di­vi­sion de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted by Ron Atkin­son in a 1–0 tri­umph over Brighton and Hove Al­bion at Gold­stone Gro­und on the 24th of April 1982 and would go on to score 67 goals in 274 mat­ches in all com­pet­i­tions for the club be­fore the at­tack minded mid­field play­er was trans­ferred to Ever­ton for a fee of £600,000 at the be­gin­ning of the 1989–90 campaign.

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