COLCHESTER UNITED

‘I played for England. I won the title with Ipswich. I scored more than 200 goals. And still I’m known as the player who scored two goals against Leeds.’

RAY CRAWFORD Colchester striker, 1971

‘Ray Crawford. You lucky bastard.’

JACK CHARLTON Leeds defender, 1971, in a note to Ray Crawford many years later

Colchester United fans will hate me, but most of this chapter is about that game. The U’s have played many games, but that game is the one we still remember. So please forgive me as I retell the story of that amazing day in 1971 when you won the Watney’s Cup final.

But first, let’s have a quick look at that other game in 1971. Oh, come on, what else am I going to talk about? Your nickname? Your nickname is the U’s, it’s a terrible nickname. You were part of possibly the most amazing day in FA Cup history. Own it. Or, win something so we can talk about that instead.

The FA have turned their own Cup into a pointless vanity project won only by uncaring big teams to whom it is a distraction from the Premier League and shown across four days on TV by a broadcaster who can’t afford the Premier League, to an audience who don’t really care for anything that isn’t the Premier League.

But time was, my friends, when we would gather round a radio to hear the draw made and every game kicked off at 3 p.m. on a Saturday and every football fan cared because every football club could win it. Yes, a radio. And not one on a phone. An actual radio, that we gathered round at school with someone given the job of writing down the teams as the balls came out of the bag. Allowing a slight pause, of course, while 13-year-old boys piss themselves at balls coming out of a bag.

With hindsight, we took an enormous amount on trust. On TV you can actually see the numbers being poured into the bowl, even though my dad insists that someone warms up Man United’s ball so they can feel for it and give them a home draw. In the radio days we just took their word for it. For all we know, the balls in the bag could have been a sound effect and they just looked at the League table and thought they’d send Spurs to Arsenal or Southampton to Northampton just for shits and giggles.

But what stories that draw threw up. From Hereford to Sutton to Wrexham, top teams were toppled on terrible pitches to spark joyous pitch invasions from thousands of kids in flares and platform shoes.

And arguably the biggest of them all happened on 13 February 1971 at Layer Road when the United of Colchester of the Fourth Division played the United of Leeds.

Colchester is the oldest recorded town in England, but Colchester United are one of the youngest teams in the League. They weren’t formed till 1937 and weren’t elected to the League until 1950. Since then, as befits a team from an army town, they have mainly spent their time in the bottom two divisions, marching up to the top of the League then marching back down again. But if the League has brought them only bread and butter, the FA Cup brought them caviar.

That Saturday afternoon was one day before Valentine’s, and two days before the nation went decimal, but no one in Colchester was thinking about love nor money. Dirty Leeds* were one of the most efficient and most unloved teams in English football. They walked on the pitch with every chance of winning the domestic treble, Colchester walked on the pitch with an outside chance of promotion to the Fourth Division. Most of the Leeds players were full internationals. Most of the Colchester players were over 30,† leading one tabloid to dub them ‘Grandad’s Army’. Colchester may have had the good wishes of the nation behind them, but in front of them they had a football machine that they couldn’t possibly beat.

Except. Except this was the FA Cup. And this may be the time for a spoiler alert. If you don’t already know the result, look away now. Don Revie, manager of dirty Leeds, was a complicated human being. He was conservative in appearance and attitude but radical in his approach to the game. He was obsessed with detailed analysis of the opposition and neurotically superstitious about his match day routine. He rarely showed respect for opponents but expected complete respect from them.

That morning, Don was not a happy man. Far from showing respect, Colchester manager Dick Graham had been publicly stating he had spotted weaknesses in their opponents’ playing style. Which is a little like saying he had spotted a dodgy water-lily in a Monet. Worse still, Don and his back-room team hadn’t bothered with the usual meticulous dossier on Colchester’s players and tactics. It was Colchester, who needs a dossier? He was also unsettled by the travel arrangements. They had arrived at the ground via a flight to Southend Airport, which was way out of the usual match day routine he normally clung to like the Pope clings to his rosary. And as if to prove that fate does not like being tempted, star striker Allan Clarke declared he was feeling unwell but agreed to play despite having a temperature of 106 degrees.

Whatever the reason, Don wasn’t thinking straight. Looking at the state of the pitch, and feeling the strength of the wind, he decided to abandon their usual passing game and basically directed some of the best players in Europe to ‘hoof it’. As it happened, Colchester hoofed it better, and for a reason. Turns out, there was a dodgy water-lily in the Monet and that was Leeds goalkeeper Gary Sprake. Dick Graham told his players that Sprake would come to the edge of the six-yard box for a header and no further. In the 18th minute, coming to collect a long-ball into the area, he did exactly that and Crawford scored with a header, unmarked by defenders who assumed Sprake would catch it.

Six minutes later, Sprake came out again, went back again, then failed to react when Crawford’s header rebounded off a defender and he toe-poked it home.

Whatever Don Revie said at half-time, it didn’t work. Possibly because the players couldn’t hear him over the sound of Allan Clarke being sick. Yet another long ball saw a mix-up between a defender and the keeper. Dave Simmonds nipped in between them to head the ball home.

Leeds did respond but the final whistle brought a 3-2 win and pandemonium. A furious Don Revie couldn’t bring himself to exchange the usual pleasantries with the opposition manager and he ordered his players to be changed and on the coach within 15 minutes.

Back in Yorkshire, Allan Clarke was diagnosed with pleurisy. Back in the real world, Colchester lost 5-0 to Everton in the next round.

But they did win the Watney’s Cup in August. That was a short-lived pre-season trophy for the two highest teams in each league who hadn’t been promoted or qualified for Europe. They drew 4-4 away at West Brom and then won on penalties. The first trophy in England ever to be won that way.

That euphoria soon wore off. They finished mid-table in the Fourth Division that season, then rather bizarrely, and inspired by Leeds, they abandoned their traditional blue and white stripes for an all-white kit worn with red boots. And inspired by Rome, they changed their badge to a Legionary standard and their nickname to the Eagles.*

But remember, as Don Revie found out, fate won’t be tempted. Halfway through the season, bottom of the table, in a desperate attempt to find a solution that didn’t involve playing better football, they went back to blue shorts and socks. Fate wasn’t impressed. They stayed bottom of the table. The following season they went back to blue and white shirts and became the U’s once more.

You may think it odd to reduce a team’s history to just one game. But sometimes you can achieve more glory in 90 minutes than you can in a hundred years. Colchester did that in what used to be the greatest cup competition in the history of the world.

Marvellous.

Why You Shouldn’t Support Them

■ Only a properly big team can call themselves something like the Eagles.

■ What did they think? Copying the Leeds kit like that. It’s football, not voodoo.

■ My first ever out-of-town gig was in Colchester. I got booed off by squaddies.