Incredibly it has been 50 years and a day since I stood in the Clock End at Highbury with my Dad, and experienced the most amazing atmosphere conceivable at a football match, in the weirdly named Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final. To be honest, nobody really fancied our chances of beating the Belgians as Anderlecht had destroyed us in the First Leg, going 3-0 up within 70 minutes, but luckily a young Ray Kennedy came on for Charlie George and scored the crucial goal that gave us a slim hope of a comeback at Highbury and our first trophy for 17 years.
There were 51,000 of us in the stands to watch Eddie Kelly, John Radford and Jon Sammels win us the trophy on the noisiest night I have ever known, and the celebrations at the end were incredible. My dad wouldn’t let me run onto the pitch but we watched the madness from the stands. It was an amazing night that I’ll never forget, but i still can’t believe it was 50 years ago!
I have two videos for you. The first is a 5 minute highlight one, and the second is a 40 minute extended highlights one. They are obviously in black and white and a bit grainy, but checkout the pitch and the amazing crowd. Maybe you’ll spot an 11 year-old Admin Pat looking on in awe!
Enjoy!