Manchester U 1 Plymouth 0

Lou Macari

Man­chester Uni­ted 1 Ply­mouth Argyle 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish FA Cup Third Ro­und, Jan­uary 5, 1974. Man­chester Uni­ted, who had to make do with­out Ge­orge Best, nar­rowly edged out Third Di­vi­sion club Ply­mouth Argyle by 1-0 at ho­me thro­ugh a goal from Lou Ma­cari four min­utes pa­st the hour mark.

A not­able ab­sent­ee at Old Traf­ford Sta­dium was Man­chester Uni­ted and North­ern Ire­land star Geor­gie Best who had be­en dropped for dis­cip­lin­ary reas­ons. Re­leg­a­tion bat­tling Man­chester Uni­ted came in­to this fix­ture on the back of an em­bar­rass­ing and mor­ale sap­ping 3-0 de­feat at the hands of Lea­gue Di­vi­sion One new boys Queens Park Ran­gers at Shepherd´s Bush, whi­le lowly pla­ced Ply­mouth Argyle had com­fort­ably beaten mid-ta­ble Tran­mere Rov­ers by 2-0 at Ho­me Park cour­tesy of a con­ver­ted pen­alty-kick by Eng­land U23 in­ter­na­tion­al Co­lin Sul­li­van and a goal from for­mer Cov­entry City mid­fielder Ernie Machin. To­ny Waiters´s Ply­mouth te­am was a blend of ex­per­i­ence and youth and The Pil­grims proved to be quite a hand­ful for The Reds. Man­chester Uni­ted may have be­en fa­vour­ites to win this ga­me but they struggled to break the de­fens­ive dead­lock dur­ing the fir­st forty-five min­utes and the fir­st ha­lf ended with­out any goals be­ing sco­red. In or­der to add some at­tack­ing im­petus, Old Traf­ford boss Tom­my Doc­herty de­cided to bring on of­fens­ive ori­ented mid­fielder Sam­my Mc­Ilroy for Mick Mar­tin on the hour ma­rk and the hosts had their win­ner four min­utes la­ter when Scot­tish wing­er Wil­lie Mor­gan sent a fine cross from the right si­de to fel­low coun­try­man Lou Ma­cari who­se well pla­ced head­er went pa­st Ply­mouth cus­todi­an Jim Fur­nell and in­to the back of the net off the upright.

In oth­er FA Cup fix­tures, West Brom­wich Al­bion out­classed Notts Coun­ty 4-0 at The Haw­thorns, Ox­ford Uni­ted suf­fered a 5-2 de­feat to Man­chester City at Man­or Gro­und, Non-Lea­gue Bo­ston Uni­ted ma­naged a sur­prise goal­less draw wi­th Der­by Coun­ty at Base­ball Gro­und, Carl­isle Uni­ted and hold­ers Sun­der­land also drew goal­less at Brunton Park, Bol­ton Wan­derers over­came Sto­ke City 3-2 at Burnden Park, West Ham Uni­ted were held to a one-all draw by Here­ford Uni­ted at Boleyn Gro­und, Wolver­hampton Wan­derers and Leeds Uni­ted drew by the same score at Mo­lineux Sta­dium, Ever­ton trashed Black­burn Rov­ers by 3-0 at Good­ison Park, Ips­wich To­wn be­at Shef­field Uni­ted 3-2 at Port­man Toad, Liver­pool could on­ly man­age a two-all draw ag­ainst Don­caster Rov­ers, and Ar­senal be­at Nor­wich City by 1-0 at Car­row Road where Ed­die Kel­ly sco­red the lone goal for The Gun­ners. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, To­ny Young, Al­ex For­syth, Bri­an Green­hoff, Jim Hol­ton, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Wil­lie Mor­gan, Lou Ma­cari, Bri­an Kidd, Ge­orge Gra­ham, Mick Mar­tin. Sub­sti­tute: Sam­my Mc­Ilroy. Ply­mouth Argyle Te­am: Jim Fur­nell, Co­lin Ran­dell, Co­lin Sul­li­van, John Hore, Dave Provan, Neil Hag­ue, Alan Welsh, Ste­ve Dav­ey, Paul Mar­iner, Ernie Machin, Alan Ro­gers. Sub­sti­tute: Derek Rickard.

 

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted suf­fered a heavy 4-1 de­feat to fel­low Sec­ond Di­vi­sion si­de Ply­mouth Argyle wit­nessed by 27,000 people at Ho­me Park in the FA Cup Third Ro­und on the 9th of Jan­uary 1932.

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