1970 FA Cup final: The most brutal game in English football history

[CharlieH]

 

Eddie Gray collects the ball in the centre circle and immediately sets his sights on Chelsea’s goal. But David Webb has other ideas. Fuelled by fresh memories of his roasting at the hands of the Leeds winger a couple of weeks prior, the defender hits him, both feet off the ground, no prisoners. Bang.

 

It takes all of two minutes for the 1970 FA Cup final replay to live up to its billing as a game best avoided by the faint of heart.

It is a match that has gone down in football folklore as a meeting of pure malice between a defeated Leeds United side renowned for having the muscle to match their magnificence and a victorious Chelsea team with flashiness and ferocity in equal measure.

Football was a very different game half a century ago, when much greater leniency was shown to crunching, full-bloodied tackles and their aftermath. But even by the standards of the time it made for brutal viewing.

Such is its enduring reputation, it has been re-refereed twice since by leading officials according to modern interpretations of the rules. In 1997, David Elleray concluded he would have shown six red cards, while in 2020 Michael Oliver opted for 11.

 

On the night, referee Eric Jennings brandished just one yellow card.

As the two clubs gear up to face each other in the FA Cup for the first time since that game 54 years ago, BBC Sport looks back at one of the most notorious encounters in English football history.

 

READ MORE