Spurs 1 Manchester Utd 3

Sammy McIlroy

Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 3, White Hart Lane, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, Feb­ruary 12, 1977. Man­chester Uni­ted won their fifth con­sec­ut­ive Fir­st Di­vi­sion mat­ch as they com­fort­ably de­feated Spurs 3-1 be­fore a 47,000 crowd at White Hart Lane. Lou Ma­cari, Sam­my Mc­Ilroy, and Gor­don Hill all sco­red a goal each for The Reds, where­as Chris Jones fou­nd the net for The Lilywhites.

Man­chester Uni­ted went in­to an early 1-0 lead as Scot­land in­ter­na­tion­al Lou Ma­cari sco­red wi­th a clo­se ran­ge ef­fort af­ter a scramble in the Tot­ten­ham pen­alty area. And shortly af­ter­wards, Sam­my Mc­Ilroy re­cor­ded the sec­ond goal of the en­counter as the mid­fielder head­ed ho­me a high ball from in­side the eight­een-yard box. The White Hart Laners came back in­to the ga­me, how­ever, when Jer­sey born front­man Chris Jones ma­naged to steer a power­ful shot from Neil McNab pa­st Man­chester Uni­ted goal­keeper Al­ex Step­ney and in­to the back of the net be­fore the in­ter­val. The fi­nal goal of the mat­ch came when a dan­ger­ous cross from at­tack­ing de­fender Jim­my Nich­oll ev­entually fou­nd for­mer Mill­wall fa­vour­ite Gor­don Hill who ham­mered the ball in­to the net from a few yards out dur­ing the clos­ing sta­ges to give the vis­it­ors a 3-1 tri­umph ag­ainst The Li­ly­whites. Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur Te­am: Pat Jen­nings, Terry Naylor, John Gor­man, An­drew Kee­ley, Keith Os­good, Pe­ter Tay­lor, Ste­ve Per­ry­man, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Jones, Neil McNab, John Duncan. Sub­stitutes: No­ne. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Stew­art Hou­s­ton, Jim­my Nich­oll, Bri­an Green­hoff, Sam­my Mc­Ilroy, Ste­ve Cop­pell, Jim­my Green­hoff, Lou Ma­cari, Stu­art Pear­son, Gor­don Hill. Sub­stitutes: None.

 

Sammy McIlroy Quickfacts

The last play­er to be sig­ned by Sir Matt Busby be­fore he made his re­tire­ment at the end of the 1969-70 sea­son, Sam­my Mc­Ilroy cel­eb­rated his de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted by scor­ing one of the goals in a high-scor­ing 3-3 draw ag­ainst Man­chester City at Maine Road on the 6th of Nov­ember 1971. Dur­ing his stay at Old Traf­ford, the mid­field or­ches­trat­or ac­cu­mu­lated 71 goals in 419 fir­st te­am mat­ches for Uni­ted be­fore he was sold to Sto­ke City for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £350,000 on the 2nd of Feb­ruary 1982.

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