CITY 2 TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR 4
FA Cup 6th Round
7th March 1993
attendance 34,050
Scorers
City Sheron(10), Phelan(87)
Spurs Nayim(25, 48 & 85), Sedgley(44)
Ref R Lewis
City Coton, Curle, Phelan, Simpson, Hill, Vonk, White, Sheron, Quinn, Flitcroft, Holden – subs Reid(unused), Ranson(unused)
Spurs Thorstvedt, Austin, Edinburgh, Samways, Mabbutt, Ruddock, Sedgley, Nayim, Anderton, Sheringham, Allen – subs Turner(80), Van den hauwe
MIKE SHERON CELEBRATES PUTTING CITY 1-0 UP
.
FROM TONY COTON’S BIOGRAPHY ‘THERE TO BE SHOT AT’… TV pundit Alan Hansen had told the nation that he was backing us to go all the way, and not only was the tie against Tottenham being shown live by the BBC, City also decided that it would be the perfect day to open the club’s new all-seater Platt Lane stand. Chairman Peter Swales wanted to show his club off in the best possible light, but it was to become a day when the City fans began to revolt against the man who had failed miserably with his pledge to make the Blues the biggest club in Manchester when he had ousted the popular long-time chairman Albert Alexander twenty years earlier.
Mike Sheron headed us into an early lead, but our dream start soon turned into a nightmare as Nayim equalised and Steve Sedgley gave Spurs a half-time advantage.
Nayim went on to complete his hat-trick in the second half as we went under completely and the atmosphere inside the ground turned spiteful. When chants about Peter Swales began ringing around Maine Road you could tell that our supporters were looking for an excuse to escalate their growing dissention, and they got it two minutes from the end when Terry Phelan scored the kind of goal that, in any other circumstances, would have been classed as sensational. The full-back collected the ball deep inside his own half before slaloming past four challenges to score at the Platt Lane end.
There had already been a couple of incursions onto the pitch by solitary fans, but it now became a trickle and then a flood as City’s more militant followers began a Blue revolution… To add to the chairman’s squirming embarrasment, the pitch-invading fans all came from the brand-spanking-new £6M stand from which he taken so much pride.
… This wasn’t an attempt to get the game abandoned. It was two decades of frustration boiling over. Referee Ray Lewis ordered the players to take refuge in the dressing rooms, while police battled to restore order.
I felt it safer to stay where I was rather than barge my way through hundreds of angry young men, but as I leaned against a goalpost I could feel the mood among the 6,000 Spurs fans housed behind me in the North Stand start to change. When a handful of them came onto the pitch, I feared it was going to descend into a full-scaled riot. One Londoner who came walking towards me was friendly enough. “Keep your chin up, fella,” he said. I thanked him for his good wishes, but warned that if he didn’t clamber back over the fence then the game was in serious danger of being abandoned. He took my advice and the game was completed once mounted police had cleared the pitch, although there was still time for Teddy Sheringham to send a penalty kick wide to avoid further aggro…
I felt it safer to stay where I was rather than barge my way through hundreds of angry young men, but as I leaned against a goalpost I could feel the mood among the 6,000 Spurs fans housed behind me in the North Stand start to change. When a handful of them came onto the pitch, I feared it was going to descend into a full-scaled riot. One Londoner who came walking towards me was friendly enough. “Keep your chin up, fella,” he said. I thanked him for his good wishes, but warned that if he didn’t clamber back over the fence then the game was in serious danger of being abandoned. He took my advice and the game was completed once mounted police had cleared the pitch, although there was still time for Teddy Sheringham to send a penalty kick wide to avoid further aggro…
