CITY 1 ARSENAL 1

League Division 1

9th October 1968

attendance 33,830

scorers
City Bell(49)
Arsenal Radford(45)

Ref H Davey

City Dowd, Connor, Pardoe, Doyle, Booth, Oakes, Lee, Bell, Summerbee, Young, Coleman – sub Owen(unused)

Arsenal Wilson, Storey, McNab, McLintock, Neill, Simpson, Radford, Sammels, Gould, Court, Jenkins – used sub Armstrong

The Gunners came to Maine Road looking for a point and their tough arm defensive display earned them just that.
City failed to bring the spark to their dominant first half performance, and the same can be said for the Maine Road floodlights, as the referee had to pause the game for a few minutes when quite a few bulbs went out, and was too dark to continue until the issue was corrected.
Arsenal undesevedly took the lead just before the break, when John Radford slid in to convert a low cross from Frank McLintock.
Just four minutes into the second half City were level as Colin Bell surged into the box and cracked an unstoppable shot past Wilson.
Arsenal were comfortable to the final whistle, with City unable to breakdown The Gunners’ nine man defence.
One positive from the match was the full league debut of young Tommy Booth, Joe Mercer eulogising “A brilliant performance. I wish I could have made a League debut like that”.