WHEN SAINTS WENT TO WEMBLEY IN 1971

When Jimmy Gabriel left Everton for Saints he did so with Alan Ball’s comment “you’ll win nothing down there” ringing in his ears. Everton’s World Cup winner and future Saint was as smart as you like on the pitch, but his parting prophetic shot to Gabriel was to prove untrue.

Back in 1968 the Daily Express had started sponsoring a Five-a-Side competition for Football and Scottish League clubs and because it was broadcast by the BBC during  its Wednesday evening’s ‘Sportsnight with Coleman’ programme, it became enormously popular as well as attracting capacity crowds of 10,000 to the Wembley Arena.

Charlton Athletic had won the inaugural competition but, 3 years later, in 1971, Southampton received their first invite, although initially they were considered “rank outsiders” by the Express. Mick Channon agreed  –

“We only went up as a rag-bag outfit, we just got in a couple of cars and went up to Wembley, we thought we had no chance”.

 The five players who “went up” were goalkeeper Eric Martin, Bobby Stokes, Terry Paine, Mick Channon and Jimmy Gabriel. Brian O’Neil travelled as a substitute.

In the first round Saints met Crystal Palace in a game comprising of two four-minute halves and won 2-0 and were next pitted against Sheffield United. A 1-1 draw – with Channon the scorer for Saints and Tony Currie for Sheffield – meant penalties were required which Saints won 4-3 after Eric Martin had saved from Tony Currie. The semi-final versus West Ham was also settled by spot-kicks following a 0-0 draw, which meant Saints were now in the Final facing Leicester – who had eliminated Alan Ball’s Everton, Celtic and West Brom.

Another 0-0 was the outcome and so now everything came down to a nerve shredding, sudden death penalty shoot-out. Terry Paine took the first kick for Saints, he sent Peter Shilton the wrong way but the ball hit the post which meant all Keith Weller had to do was to beat Martin to give Leicester the trophy. The agile Martin was not having that and he managed to push Weller’s kick over the bar. Gabriel stepped up next and scored with “ice-cold precision” according to the Echo. So it was up to David Nish to keep Leicester in the game but that man Martin saved “magnificently” and the cup was on its way to the South Coast with the Echo’s headline stating

“MARTIN STARS FOR THE CHAMPIONS”.

Fast forward 12 years and a different set of players made their way to Wembley, led by captain Steve Williams. Portsmouth and Fulham were dispatched in the first two rounds to set up another semi-final with West Ham. This time it looked as if the Hammers were to gain revenge because with just 60 seconds left on the clock they were leading 2-1 but then Saints scored two goals in a minute through Williams and Danny Wallace “to capture the hearts of everybody at our soccer bonanza” as the Daily Express put it.

In the Final Saints now faced Aston Villa and triumphed 3-0, with all the goals scored by Steve Moran, Nick Holmes and another from Wallace. Peter Shilton now the owner of a winner’s tankard said

“that semi-final was something special, but even though we were 2-1 down we had the sort of team that can score 3 goals in 10 seconds”.

Unfortunately that was to be the last time the BBC covered the tournament and without tv coverage its popularity waned so much so that it was abandoned after 1986. Southampton and Wolves were the only clubs to have won the trophy twice.