| Saturday 13 December 1969
15:00 Division One |
| |
 |
|
 |
| "Liverpool" |
1 - 4 |
"Manchester
United" |
| |
(1-1) |
|
| |
| GOAL |
| Hughes 25 |
|
Charlton, Morgan, Ure, Yeats og |
| |
1 Tommy Lawrence
2 Chris Lawler
3 Peter Wall
4 Geoff Strong
5 Ron Yeats (c)
6 Emlyn Hughes
7 Ian Callaghan
8 Ian Ross
9 Peter Thompson
10 Ian St John
11 Bobby Graham
Subs:
12 Roger Hunt |
|
1 Alex Stepney
2 Shay Brennan
3 Tony Dunne
4 Francis Burns
5 Ian Ure
6 David Sadler
7 Willy Morgan
8 George Best
9 Bobby Charlton (c)
10 Pat Crerand
11 John Aston (jnr)
Subs:
12 Carlo Sartori |
| |
| SUBSTITUTIONS |
| Ross (Hunt 71) |
|
Aston (Sartori ?) |
| |
| OFFICIALS & BOOKINGS |
| Referee: |
| |
|
|
| VENUE |
|
MANAGERS |
Anfield (capacity )
Attendance: 47,682 |
|
Bill Shankly (Liverpool)
Wilf McGuinness (MU) |
 Price: 9 d
Notes:
- Ron Yeats scored an own goal
|
|
After the 1968/69 season, both clubs' silverware hauls
had dried up. Liverpool won nothing between 1966 and 1973, and we know all too painfully
where United were heading by '73. So, in a sense, Old Trafford's Reds would say their
temporary goodbyes to summit-level football at Anfield on 13 December 1969 - and in the
most extraordinary fashion imaginable.
New United boss Wilf McGuinness, four days ahead of a League Cup semi-final derby
clash with City, took his new charges to face the Kop, and produced a goal glut to live
long in United hearts and minds. Not for another quarter of a century would a visiting
side fire four past the Anfield Reds.
New boys Ian Ure and Willie Morgan added to an own goal, but it was Bobby Charlton
who produced the immortal memory: a phenomenal edge-of-box rocket in front of a
disbelieving, slack-jawed Kop, a strike so beautiful and unearthly that Sir Matt himself,
quite uncharacteristically, leapt to his feet in the directors' box to applaud frenziedly.
Sweet: but United's Swinging Sixties were now sadly over. And by the time, in April
1972, that Liverpool came and won 3-0 at Old Trafford, United were so far into their
agonisingly long freefall towards Division 2 that it went almost un-noticed.
Airfield's attendances were now temporarily exceeding OT's: grim times indeed. But
the 1970s tanking that truly sticks in the craw - and mind - would come in December 1978,
in a game which older Reds can now almost chucklingly look back on as the 'Worst Yuletide
Ever', when Dave Sexton might just as well have stamped on all our presents... |
