And so we come to the final part of our series on the 1987 FA Cup run, the emotional Semi-Final at Hillsborough against Coventry City. At the time we felt devastated that we’d just missed out on the chance to get to Wembley, but looking back on it now we can see that in many respects the game was played in similar circumstances to the match that produced English football’s biggest disaster two years later.

As with the 1989 semi-final the club with the larger support was given the smaller Leppings Lane end, thus antagonising many fans who then made a determined effort to get hold of tickets anyway. Supporters Club members and Season ticket holders were guaranteed tickets, but long queues formed as the remaining 6,000 went on sale at Elland Road, ending up with a dangerous stampede when the office finally opened.

In an attempt to stop Leeds fans from getting tickets for their section Coventry announced that fans who went to one particular game would be guaranteed tickets. But what were they thinking of when they decided that it would be a match on that was taking place on a Friday night when Leeds weren’t playing? I know of quite a few midlands-based Leeds fans who gratefully took the easy opportunity to go along and get tickets from the Coventry allocation.

Yet again the authorities felt the need to give us a 12 noon Sunday kick-off, which was unheard of for an FA Cup semi-final at the time. On the day I traveled up with the West Midlands branch of the supporters club, who picked me up on the outskirts of Derby, the city where I was living at the time. I thought we’d set off in plenty of time, but as kick-off time approached we were hopelessly stuck in traffic as the M1 ground to a standstill on the outskirts of Sheffield.

But the one crucial difference between our game and 1989 was the decision to put the kick off back by 15 minutes. This news came over the radio and as a result everyone on the coach was much calmer than we would have been, and we walked to the ground at a normal pace rather than rushing to get in for the start. If only the police had agreed to a similar delay to the kick-off on the day of the disaster two years later....

As I came through the tunnel towards the central pen of the terrace I decided that it looked far too crowded, and that I would hardly even get onto the back steps, so instead I went up to the top of the terrace in the corner. I’ve since learned that a lot of people felt crushed in the section I avoided and that some people had to be pulled up into the seats above to escape the overcrowding. This was of course the very same pen where the Liverpool fans died two years later, unable to move sideways to escape because of lateral fencing.

Leeds began the game at a high tempo and took the lead on 17 minutes through a David Rennie header. And we really should have gone on to win the game, as we looked much the better side for the first hour, but the game turned in the 70th minute with an error from Brendan Ormsby. As he tried to shield the ball out Coventry winger David Bennett did well to nip past him and whip the ball across for Gynn to score the equaliser. Ormsby has taken a lot of criticism for this mistake, but the alternative was to hoof it out for a corner, and maybe Coventry would have scored from that.

It was inevitable that serial FA cup hero Keith Houchen would get his name on the scoresheet at some stage, and he duly put Coventry in front in the 80th minute. But still Leeds had time to come back. Keith Edwards had endured a very disappointing season since his high-profile move from Sheffield United the previous summer, but he was the one who dragged us back into this game, heading home from a left wing cross to force extra time.

But as the additional half hour began I somehow had the feeling that it wasn’t going to be our day, that as Coventry had never won the FA Cup, they were fated to do so that year and that we would miss out. And so it proved. As the players tired the ever-lively Bennett found the energy to force the ball home from close range, and this time there was no way back for Leeds. Coventry held on to win 3-2 and we had fallen at the final hurdle and failed to reach Wembley.

The Sky Blues went on to beat Spurs in the final and so invalidate a line in Monty Python’s early seventies ‘Communist Quiz sketch’ (“it’s a trick question, Coventry City have never won the FA Cup”.) As for us, Leeds have never got that far in the FA Cup since, not even during our spell in the Premiership throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. We were regular visitors to the 5th round and got to the 6th round twice during that period, but not once did we make it as far as another Semi-Final.

And given our recent knack of being drawn against top Premiership sides at every opportunity, will we ever get that far again? We can always dream.

 

Photo: Action Images

Tare added 23:22 - Apr 15 Yes that season after was the start of Howard Wilkinson era and sadly Billy Bremner managerial career was hit by the sledgehammer. Even though we may have different opinions here of HW he was almost vicious person to handle LU band; this refer to McCormack when Ian Baird was almost always under performing at striking positions (e.g. in the games which matters most)) he shouted from the stands "can't believe it" after that it was Lee Chapman who came in and rest is really history. Tare

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