The Forest controversy of 1974.

October 16th, 2009 | 63 Comments |

Following success in the earlier rounds, Newcastle United found themselves at home in the quarter finals of the FA cup in front of a crowd of 54,500 facing second division Nottingham Forest.

Excitement was at fever pitch as we were only a couple of games away from the final. The great unwashed of Sunderland had won the cup the previous year, so surely it was our turn to get out the daft hats, practise Abide with Me and take a trip down Wembley Way?

Our form leading up to that game had been poor, especially at home, so the writing seemed to be on the wall when we went behind in under 2 minutes. It didn’t get much better and we started the second half 2-1 down. Coming up to the hour mark, disaster struck when our big centre half Pat Howard was sent off for pushing the referee in the chest when disputing a penalty award. Forest scored and we found ourselves trailing 3-1. (more…)