1973-74 Arsenal away

Saturday 23rd March 1974, Highbury Stadium, First Division, Season 1973-1974

Arsenal 2 CITY 0 | Att: 25,319 | (Radford 2)

TEAMS | MacRae, Pardoe, Donachie, Doyle, Booth, Horswill, Summerbee, Bell, Lee, Oakes, Tueart. Substitute: Carrodus

Arsenal | Wilson, Rice, Nelson, Storey, Simpson, Kelly (Brady), George, Ball, Radford, Kennedy, Armstrong.

Defeat at Highbury dropped City to 16th and increased the doubts about the team’s ability to survive this increasingly limp season. Joe Corrigan’s latest disaster against Sheffield United had indeed seen Keith MacRae shipped back into goals, whilst Lee returned for Carrodus, giving the side a full-strength feel. The victory was as important to Arsenal, only their second since Christmas, and lifted them out of the stagnant group lingering just above the trapdoor.

“Chisel is no match for the mallet” shouted the Guardian’s headline, suggesting City’s pretty tinkering fell foul of a more basic clout from the Gunners.

With the relentless foraging of future City manager Alan Ball in midfield and Bob Wilson rolling back the years in goal, the home side had two players leading very much by example. Ball’s England midfield partner Colin Bell did his best to counteract the Arsenal man’s ferocious appetite for battle with his own unique input, but when the City man did break free to shoot on goal, Wilson performed heroics.

(Below) Micky Horswill chases John Radford to no avail. Radford would net both Arsenal’s goals. “…Horswill, on the other hand, seemed half-blinded by the bright light of the First Division…” >

John Samuel’s report in The Guardian suggested City were, once again, a little unlucky, in this case to find Bob Wilson in such agile form. Colin Bell’s acrobatics, that on other occasions in London had brought fantastically productive results (his volley at Chelsea in 1970 had left the whole place speechless and would not be bettered until Marco van Basten pulled off a similar piece of skill in the ’88 Euro Final against the Soviet Union), and Mike Summerbee’s hungry probing had not been enough to produce a breakthrough either. Barring a stirring victory in the 1975-76 season, Highbury would remain a place where City fans saw not one single triumph until a 1-0 League Cup win in 2011.

As well as Ball, Bell and Wilson, John Radford, with both goals, attracted inevitable attention. Having been with the club ten years, the Yorkshireman was part of the Highbury furniture and, as such, used to being taken somewhat for granted. His part in the Arsenal success story of the early 70s cannot be underestimated, however, and it remained a mystery how the cumbersome Martin Chivers had continually kept Radford out of the England reckoning in the early part of the decade. His partnership with the bustling Ray Kennedy had been critical in Arsenal’s 1971 double season. His goals ratio, up to now around one in two games, was beginning to drop off, however, and he would end the 73-74 and 74-75 seasons with tallies in single figures, before a 1976 switch took him across London for a goalless season with West Ham. His career would end at Backburn Rovers.

This would be Bob Wilson’s last season as a professional, despite his relatively young age for a goalkeeper (32). He would leave the game with 310 appearances under his belt, all for Arsenal, before embarking on a new career alongside Jimmy Hill on Match of the Day and as a regular if not full-time successor to Frank Bough on Grandstand. His calm personality took him to the Sportsnight studios too and he needed all of that composure when co-presenting Grandstand on the day of the Hillsborough disaster in 1989.

For City and Saunders, time was clearly running out. Saunders maintained that only Newcastle had played fewer games than his side and that a run of four consecutive home games would help to even the imbalance, as he saw it. Indeed the potential eight points from those home fixtures was all that separated City from Derby County in 3rd place in the table, despite a season of lumpen lack of productivity. Perhaps there was still time to make a late run at the European places, even if such a thought seemed ridiculous as the fans headed for the Finsbury Park tube.

Rumours continued to swirl around a possible Leeds bid for Mike Summerbee, one of the unsettled big stars struggling to come to terms with the new manager’s modus operandi. With Don Revie a high-profile admirer of the City winger’s full-blooded wingplay, an official bid had been expected for some days, without anything concrete appearing. Summerbee would eventually be shipped out to Burnley for a nominal fee in 1975, but mystery surrounding why Leeds did not eventually put their money where their mouth was persisted for some time.

John Radford (above right) is congratulated by George Armstrong and Alan Ball after one of his two goals, whilst (above left, from top) Dennis Tueart challenges Pat Rice, Bob Wilson takes control ahead of Colin Bell and English football experiences its first-ever streaker.