“The crowd have gone completely and utterly bonkers!”

Forest 3 Everton 2

FA Cup 6^th Round, City Ground, Saturday 5^th April 1967, 47,510

  

A survey for The Official History of Nottingham Forest, first published in 1998, invited Reds fans to name their three all-time favourite Forest games and, despite all the glory that was to come in the Clough years, this match received more votes than any other in the club’s history. It was a high point of what was at the time our best season ever (reaching the semi-final of the FA Cup and finishing second in the First Division). I was three at the time, so I can’t claim to have any memory of the game, but Johnny Carey’s team duly took their place in Reds folklore and the key moments of the game have become as familiar to me as many of the great occasions I witnessed once my Forest-watching days had started the following season.

Having just missed out on seeing for myself a team still remembered with great affection by older fans today, I found myself fascinated by them from a young age and increasingly drawn to finding out as much as I could about them, just as it is part of the footballing education of those Forest fans too young to have witnessed the glory years a decade or so later to learn all about the European Cup-winning campaigns. After all, at the time I had no reason to think we’d ever match or exceed the 1966-67 team’s achievements - as far as any Reds fan knew BC (before Clough), this was as good as things were ever going to get.

With the fiftieth anniversary of that Double-chasing season approaching, I had the rather fanciful idea of commemorating the team’s achievements in a book. That team and season have been somewhat overshadowed by the successes that followed and tend to be given scant coverage in books on the club’s history. I wanted to add something to the Forest canon that was solely about that team and not just a brief mention from an author squeezing over a century of football history into a few pages in the rush to get to the glory years. And so I made numerous visits to the Central Library on Angel Row to read up on the season in the microfilm archives of the Evening Post, hoovering up whatever caught my eye from the match reports and daily news updates to add colour to the bare details of scores, scorers and line-ups I already had in books and match programmes. 

Then, as now, I was writing regularly for the club’s official programme, so my back-up plan if – or, more likely, when - I couldn’t get a book deal was to use my 1966-67 research as the basis for a series of articles throughout the 2016-17 season. One of the publishers I approached, The History Press, was initially interested, but they soon thought better of the idea and asked me instead to contribute a Forest edition to their series of quiz books on individual clubs. As a keen quizzer and Reds obsessive, I found this too good an opportunity to turn down and the result was Never Mind The Reds.

And so my 1966-67 research was indeed converted into match-by-match write-ups to be published in the programme in the corresponding week of the anniversary season, with, thanks to the contacts of the editor, George Solomon, the added bonus of being able to include a few memories from two of the team's greatest players. When I rather cheekily asked - more in hope than expectation - if he was in contact with any of the players from that era whom I might be able to interview, George was able to put me in touch with goal-scoring winger Ian Storey-Moore, arguably the most popular player in the 1966-67 team. 

He was only too happy to meet in person so I could capture his memories of the season in general and this game in particular. As I have subsequently read and heard on various occasions, it’s a story he’s well used to relating. Nonetheless, he willingly gave up an hour and a half of his time in a West Bridgford coffee shop on a midweek afternoon in November, hours before we separately endured a predictably dispiriting 1-3 defeat against Brentford that only served to emphasise the chasm between the Forest of old and the then-current team. He was friendly and engaged throughout and needed considerable persuasion to let me pay for his tea and toast before he went upstairs to join the other (unnamed) former players he regularly met in that coffee shop.

The only team-mate from 1966-67 he was still in regular touch with was goalkeeper Peter Grummitt and, once he'd checked Grummitt was willing - or at least prepared - to have a total stranger ring him up and chat for a book that might never exist, passed me his number. Grummitt was noticeably more reserved than Story-Moore, a phone call perhaps being more awkward for both of us than a face-to-face meeting, but nevertheless he chatted with me for the best part of an hour. I'm not sure how many players in today's second-best Premier League team would chat at length to an amateur writer and expect nothing in return. Actually, I'm perfectly sure. In both their cases I was careful to suppress the fan-boy in me and interview them as professionally as I could, which seemed to work quite well, as Storey-Moore at one point asked, "So do you do this for a living, then?" In the weeks that followed, I painstakingly transcribed my conversations with the two of them and once there was no longer a potential book to use them in, they became the basis of my programme articles looking back on that season a half-century later. 

For reasons that will be obvious to those already familiar with the game’s significance and soon will be to anyone else, the Everton Cup tie merited a particularly long piece. I fleshed it out with some background on the run-up to the game (from my library research) and took the reader through the match action, having bought a (possibly slightly dodgy) DVD copy of the surviving TV coverage. The following description of the BBC's footage is based on that article, which appeared in the programme for the game against Huddersfield Town on 8 April 2017. While any Forest fan of a certain age will be able to tell you about the heart-stoppingly exciting end to the game, the anticipation of the game and the increasing tension of the first 88 or so minutes are also worth revisiting.

Our FA Cup run had seen us see off Plymouth Argyle, Newcastle United and, at the third attempt, Swindon Town in front of 52,000 at Villa Park, thousands of whom (my father included) missed much or all of the first half, as neither the old single-carriageway A453 nor Villa's turnstiles had been able to cope with the hordes crossing the Midlands during the rush hour. In the quarter-final we were drawn at home to holders Everton, who had beaten neighbours and reigning League champions Liverpool in the 5^th round in front of almost 65,000 at Goodison Park. As is clear from those attendance figures, these were the days long before the FA, the TV companies and the greedier clubs conspired to all but kill off the appeal of the world’s oldest club tournament, so tickets for the quarter-final were in huge demand.

In those days away teams were allowed to claim a much higher proportion of the tickets than today and Everton took up their full allocation of 11,500. Meanwhile, despite an increase in price to 10s or 15s (50p or 75p today) for seats and 5s or 6s (25p or 30p) to stand, some Reds fans spent the night outside the ground to guarantee themselves a ticket and the queue eventually stretched the length of Pavilion Road, round the Bridgford Hotel and back down Trentside to the far end of the Trent End. It later became apparent that a number of those who queued for tickets had no intention of attending the match themselves. Black market tickets were fetching vastly increased prices in the run-up to the game, while on the day stand tickets were selling for as much as five pounds, with terrace tickets going for six times face value.

This was good old-fashioned Cup Fever, an echo of the excitement in the city during our victorious FA Cup campaign in 1959 - indeed, the match programme drew parallels with our journey to Wembley that year. We had also needed three matches in the 5^th Round to get past Birmingham City and the reward had also been a home tie against the holders, Bolton Wanderers. The programme cover featured a photo of Tommy Wilson scoring against Bolton and on the eve of the Everton game Roy Dwight, who scored in the 1959 Final before becoming the latest in a long line of victims of the notorious Wembley injury hoodoo, sent a telegram wishing the club good luck.

Everton were without goalkeeper Gordon West, who had broken a bone in his hand at Tottenham on Easter Monday, but were otherwise at full strength. West’s place was taken by Andy Rankin, who had made his debut against us some years earlier. Henry Newton, having been rated doubtful to play in the days leading up to the game, wore an oversized boot (borrowed from apprentice Steve Pegram) to protect his broken toe. Former Evertonian Frank Wignall, had, like Newton, missed the previous three matches, but was also fit to play.

The footage of the game captures all the drama of the day and although most of the excitement comes in the second half, what could be seen as the turning point of the game occurs after just two minutes. Joe Baker, the speedy striker who rivalled Storey-Moore for popularity among the fans, is caught by Brian Labone’s flying challenge, which to this day is viewed by many observers as having been a pre-meditated “reducer”. Chasing Grummitt’s long clearance towards the Bridgford End, Baker manages to get a shot away from just outside the penalty area, but falls to the ground in agony as Rankin saves the ball. He tries to play on, but is unable to shake off the injury to his thigh. Shortly after Baker’s injury, skipper Terry Hennessey receives a kick on the leg, which troubles him for the rest of the game.

We threaten on 25 minutes, when Wignall heads wide from John Barnwell’s right-wing cross. Baker has gamely tried to play on, but is clearly no more than a passenger and after half an hour manager Johnny Carey finally sends Alan Hinton on to replace him. Baker’s season is over and with it, perhaps, our hopes of becoming only the second team in the 20^th century to do the League and FA Cup double. Ian Storey-Moore switches to centre-forward, with Hinton playing in his customary left-wing position. Everton take advantage of our regrouping to take the lead on 36 minutes. Alan Ball’s measured through ball puts Jimmy Husband through and he steers the ball past Grummitt.

It’s in the second half that the tension really starts to mount, with the action swinging from end to end. First future Evertonian Henry Newton drives wide, then Husband is denied by a magnificent reaction save by Grummitt, who somehow keeps his point-blank header out as he falls to his right on the goal line. Hennessey completes the clearance, leaving Husband shaking his head in disbelief.

The equaliser comes on 66 minutes, when Wignall’s left-footed drive from 20 yards is fumbled by Rankin, leaving Storey-Moore the simple task of slotting home from eight yards. We pile on the pressure and Rankin soon has to gather Hinton’s powerful cross-shot from the left. Keen to set his side on the attack again, Rankin hurriedly hurls the ball out, but Barnwell intercepts it and sends it straight back into the danger area. Rankin loses the ball under pressure from Wignall and Storey-Moore tucks it home, but referee Jim Finney rightly rules that he has barged Rankin unfairly.

Meanwhile, police and ambulancemen gather behind the Trent End goal to treat a fan, as the excitement on the field leads to surges on the terraces. Moments later, we are in front as Wignall tees up Storey-Moore to shoot left-footed across Rankin from the edge of the area. BBC commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme also finds himself caught up in the excitement, proclaiming that Storey-Moore will no doubt be “crowned Sheriff of Nottingham tomorrow, I should think!”

We have the momentum now and Hinton chips over from John Winfield’s pass as we look for a third. But with ten minutes left to play, Ray Wilson finds Ball, who spreads the ball wide to Sandy Brown on the right. As Hennessey commits himself to the tackle, Brown easily flicks the ball away from him before sliding the ball in for Husband to calmly stroke home his second goal of the game.

By now the teams are slugging it out like weary heavyweights in the final round of a prize fight. Bobby McKinlay’s header from a Barry Lyons corner is headed off the line by Colin Harvey with Rankin well beaten. At the other end, Ball’s pass across the edge of the penalty box falls perfectly for Johnny Morrissey to fire a left-footed drive goalwards, only for Grummitt to tip it over. With two minutes remaining, Morrissey’s corner is headed on and John Hurst nods just wide of Grummitt’s right-hand post from six yards out.

Just as time is running out and a replay at Goodison the following Tuesday is looking inevitable, the plot of this memorable drama has one final, incredible twist. Winfield fires in a diagonal pass from just inside the visitors’ half, Wignall - who else? - wins the ball with ease and nods it sideways to Storey-Moore, who volleys the ball into the covering Hurst. Reacting first, Storey-Moore then shoots against Rankin’s legs. The ball bounces back to him on the six yard line and he heads it past Rankin as the keeper gets back to his feet. Unbelievably, the ball comes back off the crossbar and finally, at the fourth attempt, Storey-Moore nods it over the line from two yards. He doesn’t know it as he celebrates, punching the air with a broad grin on his face, but he has just scored the first of the two particular goals in his long Forest career, which, to this day, need no further description for a generation of Reds fans than simply “that goal” (the second is described here).

In the commentary, Wolstenholme breathlessly captures the utter mayhem that greets this amazing sequence of events. First he tries to keep up with Storey-Moore’s repeated attempts to score (“He’s… No, he’s not… Yes, he has!”). Then his attention is caught by some fans celebrating on the pitch – “Oh! A great rugby tackle by one policeman!” He finally sums up the scene by declaring, “The crowd have gone completely and utterly bonkers!” To a generation of Reds fans those words must be as resonant and memorable as his more famous “They think it’s all over...” observation from the previous summer.

Finney is aware of the unwritten rule that referees must blow for time with the ball safely in mid-air and, after Grummitt clears, signals the end of an epic tie. The City Ground erupts, fans spill onto the pitch and the contrast between the two exhausted sets of players could hardly be greater. Those in red are elated, those in blue deflated, winners and losers alike scarcely believing the drama in which they have just starred. Despite the early injury to the talismanic Baker and the subsequent knock to Hennessey, Forest have knocked the cup-holders out in a match that will never be forgotten. 

All those years later, the modest Storey-Moore told me Wignall should have been man of the match in what was arguably his finest display in a Forest shirt – and he didn’t even score.

“I got the goals and got the accolades, but certainly in my opinion Frank Wignall was the Man of the Match. He caused them havoc, Frank, in the second half. He won all the headers and I fed off him and got the scraps. Frank was immense that day, especially when Joe went off.”

Writing in the Sunday Mirror that “this should have been the Cup Final”, Ken Montgomery can’t have been the only one to offer the opinion that “all twelve of Johnny Carey’s commandos … deserve the freedom of the City”. Recognising the part the defeated Everton team played in the game, he continued, “I say strike twenty-three medals and hand them to every man who made this the most titanic soccer tug-o-war of this or any other season”.

Presciently, the notes in the programme had concluded with the following: “The outcome will be in doubt until the end for the match has every appearance of being a Cup thriller that, in future years, those who are present will recount to anyone who cares to listen … ‘I was there when Forest and Everton met in the Cup in 1967…’” Those fortunate enough to have taken their places in our biggest home crowd of our then best-ever season will certainly have done just that time and time again over the last half-century or so.

Forest: Grummitt, Hindley, Winfield, Hennessey, McKinlay, Newton, Lyons, Barnwell, Baker (Hinton), Wignall, Storey-Moore

Everton: Rankin, Wright, Wilson, Hurst, Labone, Harvey, Young, Ball, Brown, Husband, Morrissey; Temple.