Manchester U 2 Liverpool 1

Jimmy Greenhoff

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Liver­pool 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, April 5, 1980. Sec­ond pla­ced Man­chester Uni­ted came from be­hind to edge out Liver­pool 2-1 in front of a 57,000 crowd at Old Traf­ford. Ken­ny Dalg­lish pro­vided Liver­pool wi­th the lead, but goals by Mickey Tho­mas and Jim­my Green­hoff saw the ho­me si­de emerge victorious. 

Man­chester Uni­ted had opened the 1979-80 cam­paign on the front foot wi­th four wins from their fir­st six fix­tures and were top­ping the ta­ble by mid-Septem­ber, but then they began drop­ping points. The Man­chester Reds were ev­entually over­taken by Liver­pool af­ter be­ing held to a 1-1 draw by Leeds Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford in early Dec­ember and they slipped fur­ther be­hind in the title race fol­low­ing a 2-0 de­feat ag­ainst Bob Paisley´s te­am at An­field on Box­ing Day. Man­chester Uni­ted re­turned to their pre­vi­ous good form as the sea­son went along, how­ever, and they were al­ways in reas­on­able touch wi­th the Mer­sey­siders. Ahead of the re­turn meet­ing ag­ainst Liver­pool in early April, Man­chester Uni­ted were sit­ting in sec­ond place and they still had a chan­ce of win­ning the title if they de­feated The An­field­ers at Old Traf­ford. Liver­pool began the bet­ter, tho­ugh, as Ken­ny Dalg­lish slot­ted the ball ho­me wi­th a well pla­ced shot in the four­teenth min­ute of the North West Der­by. Man­chester Uni­ted re­fused to buckle and had their equal­iser just five min­utes la­ter when Ste­ve Cop­pell cros­sed for the on-run­ning Mickey Tho­mas who ma­naged to scramble the ball in­to the back of the net. Uni­ted push­ed hard for a sec­ond goal fol­low­ing the break and the win­ner ul­ti­mately ar­rived three min­utes pa­st the hour ma­rk when Joe Jor­dan nod­ded a flag-kick on to Jim­my Green­hoff who back­headed the ball in­to the net. Else­where, third pla­ced Ips­wich To­wn de­feated Nor­wich City 4-2 at Port­man Road where Scot­land in­ter­na­tion­al John Wark sco­red a hat-trick, in­clud­ing a pen­alty, fourth po­si­tioned Ar­senal were held to a 1-1 draw ag­ainst South­ampton at High­bury, and As­ton Vil­la, in fifth spot, over­came Not­ting­ham For­est by 3-2 at Vil­la Park. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ga­ry Bai­ley, Ar­thur Al­bis­ton, Jim­my Nich­oll, Gor­don Mc­Queen, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Lou Ma­cari, Ste­ve Cop­pell, Ray Wil­kins, Jim­my Green­hoff, Joe Jor­dan, Mickey Tho­mas. Sub­stitutes: No­ne. Liver­pool Te­am: Ray Clem­ence, Alan Han­sen, Phil Neal, Alan Ken­nedy, Phil Thomp­son, Ray Ken­nedy, Ken­ny Dalg­lish, Terry Mc­Der­mott, Da­vid John­son, Jim­my Case, Graeme Soun­ess. Sub­sti­tute: Sam­my Lee.

 

Jimmy Greenhoff Quickfacts

Jim­my Green­hoff kick-star­ted his pro­fes­sion­al play­ing ca­reer at Leeds Uni­ted where the stri­ker ac­cu­mu­lated 21 Foot­ball Lea­gue goals in 94 ap­pear­ances un­der Don Re­vie. He then had a short spell at Sec­ond Di­vi­sion Birm­ing­ham City be­fore he joi­ned Di­vi­sion One club Sto­ke City for a trans­fer fee of £100,000 at the be­gin­ning of the 1969-70 sea­son. Af­ter amass­ing 76 goals in 274 Fir­st Di­vi­sion mat­ches for The Pot­ters, Green­hoff was sold to Man­chester Uni­ted for an es­tim­ated fee of £120,000 in Nov­ember 1976.

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