| Event | 1984–85 FA Cup | ||||||
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| Afterextra time | |||||||
| Date | 18 May 1985 | ||||||
| Venue | Wembley Stadium,London | ||||||
| Referee | Peter Willis (County Durham) | ||||||
| Attendance | 100,000 | ||||||
←1984 1986 → | |||||||
The1985 FA Cup final was the 104th final of theFA Cup. It took place on 18 May 1985 atWembley Stadium, and was contested byManchester United and holdersEverton. United won by a single goal, scored inextra time byNorman Whiteside, when he curled the ball into the net past the reach ofNeville Southall after a run from the right.
Everton were playing for the opportunity to win an unprecedented Treble, having won the First Division title by a margin of 13 points with three games to spare and beatenRapid Wien in the1985 European Cup Winners' Cup Final in Rotterdam just three days earlier. Meanwhile, Manchester United had finished fourth in the league and reached the quarter-finals of theUEFA Cup. The two sides met three times during the 1984–85 season prior to the FA Cup final; first, a 5–0 Everton win in the league atGoodison Park on 27 October 1984, followed by a 2–1 Everton win in the third round of theLeague Cup atOld Trafford three days later (Everton were ultimately knocked out of the League Cup byGrimsby Town in the following round). The third meeting, also at Old Trafford, was a 1–1 league draw on 2 March 1985.
Eight of United's starting 11 had been members of the cup-winning side fromtwo years earlier, whileArthur Albiston was the only remaining player from the team that won the1977 FA Cup Final. When United next won the trophy in1990, Mark Hughes and Bryan Robson were the only players from the 1985 side to feature in the winning team. Everton's last remaining player from this match wasNeville Southall, who stayed with them until 1998 and helped them win a league title in1987 and the FA Cup in1995, also against United – where he and Welsh compatriot Hughes were the only survivors from the 1985 final.
The match was preceded by a minute's silence in memory of those who had died in theBradford City stadium fire a week earlier.
Everton'sPeter Reid had the first chance of the game after about 15 minutes; Manchester United goalkeeperGary Bailey came to meet a long throw-in fromGary Stevens, but his punch was poor and only went as far as Reid on the edge of the penalty area. Reid volleyed the ball goalwards, but it was deflected onto the post by a slidingJohn Gidman.[1]
With just under 15 minutes left in the second half,Kevin Moran of Manchester United became the first player to be sent off in an FA Cup Final, for committing aprofessional foul onPeter Reid, who was clean through on goal.
The match remained goalless after 90 minutes and went to extra time. Five minutes after half-time in extra time, Manchester United'sNorman Whiteside scored the winner, curling a low shot around Everton'sPat Van Den Hauwe and past goalkeeperNeville Southall into the bottom corner of the net.
Having been sent off, Moran was not allowed to collect his medal with the rest of the Manchester United team as they received the trophy, althoughThe Football Association later voted to allow him to receive one while the team was on holiday in Trinidad.
Two weeks after the match, rioting byLiverpool fans towardsJuventus fans at the1985 European Cup Final caused theHeysel disaster, in which 39 Juventus fans were unlawfully killed. As a result, UEFA banned all English clubs from competing in European competitions indefinitely, which meant United were unable to compete inthe following season'sCup Winners' Cup. Everton were also banned from competing as league winners in the1985–86 European Cup. The ban stood for five years, with Liverpool receiving a further year's exclusion.
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