A Season to Remember: 1964/5.

At Last, the FA Cup! And a First Taste of Europe...

It will seem very difficult to imagine for many fans today, including many on TTT, who regard the FA Cup as at best a mildly desirable diversion, and at worst a season-derailing irritant meriting little attention or focus and not worth risking a first team player on. It all depends on the context in any at season though, of course!

But once – and not so long ago – it really was The Big One, held in such esteem that it was regarded as being on at least an equal footing with the Division 1 title and certainly far ahead of it for glamour.

For confirmation, look at Liverpool’s attendances in the 1960s; the FA Cup ones were consistently and conspicuously higher than those in the league.

Average home attendance in the previous (title-winning) season 1963/4 - 45,031.

FA Cup Round 3 v Derby County - over 46,000

Round 4 v lower league Port Vale - over 53,000

In this 1964-5 season:

Average home league attendance - 41,036,

FA Cup Round 4 v Div.4 Stockport County - 51,851

Quarter final replay v Leicester City - 53, 324

The FA Cup, and especially the Final, were special in those days, not least because it was the only domestic game to be shown live, and on both BBC and ITV simultaneously. Coverage of what was then a 3pm Saturday kick off began at around 10am, with interviews of players, managers and travelling fans, and footage of the players boarding their coaches at their hotels, their coaches making their way towards Wembley and being stuck in crowds down Wembley Way ... it was the biggest football occasion of the year, by a light year.

Of course there was a particular reason for Liverpool to be obsessed with the FA Cup back then. Despite having just been crowned champions for the sixth time the previous season (see A Season to Remember 1963-4), the club had still never won the elusive damned thing. They’d only reached the final twice in 64 attempts, losing to Burnley in 1914 and Arsenal in 1950. That’s why Bill Shankly regarded May 1st 1965 as the most important date so far in the club’s 73 year history. And why he rested seven first-teamers for the final league game of the season, at Wolves, for which he received an FA reprimand.

The season when that bogey was finally laid began with the Charity Shield, which in those days was held at the ground of the league winners. FA Cup holders West Ham were the visitors to Anfield, emerging with a 2-2 draw.

The Reds’ first ever game in Europe – in Reykjavik (see ‘The Reds in Europe’ below) – followed just TWO DAYS after the Charity Shield. The game proved a good deal less arduous than the schedule or the journey, resulting in a 5-0 rout.

The defence of the title began with a 3-2 home win over Arsenal, the first game ever shown on BBC’s new flagship football highlights show on Saturday night, called Match of the Day, in all its monochrome glory.

The rest of this article is only for Subscribers to Dynasty: