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of late goals and I recall seeing the name Best appended to their second goal, in the 87th minute as far as I remember, and thinking, “Best? Who the hell’s that?”
I can also remember seeing a black and white photo in one of the Sunday papers the next day of a very short-haired George being congratulated by his team-mates and, frankly, the image didn’t please me one bit. A big crowd would’ve been expected for such a replay anyway, especially as we’d seen off the mighty Everton in the previous round, but, although I didn’t realize it at the time, George’s magic was already beginning to work on the fans nationwide and many young girls were planning to come along. Incidentally our Graham was at the Everton match and he told me he’d passed an Everton fan who was announcing to no-one in particular his opinion of Sunderland A.F.C. as he strode by the ground i.e. “Second Division shit! Second Division shit!” On the afternoon of that game I was in our living room making a jigsaw with my mate David when my Dad twice came running through from the front-room to tell us that we’d scored. We were three-up after about half an hour. A long time later he came walking through to announce Everton had pulled one back and the final score was 3-1.
I can’t remember exactly why I didn’t attend the Man United game but I vaguely recall my Mam not wanting me to go as everyone knew it was going to be packed. On the day of the match a classmate Derek came to my house for his tea and afterwards we kicked a ball around at the top of
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