FA Cup Details

The FA Cup stated with a 3-0 win over Sunderland, at Goodison Park in the 3rd round thanks to an inspired display by Alex Young. 
The win set up a fourth round tie away to non league Bedford Town and another 3-0 win saw Everton ease into the next round. 

Coventry City were the next opponents, with the game taking place at Goodison Park, and another 3-0 meant that Everton were in 
their first quarter final for 13 years. Reward for the victory over Coventry was tricky away game at second division Manchester City, 
who were doing exceptionally well and would gain promotion at the end of the season. The game took place at Maine Road and 
63,034 people turned up to witness a goal-less game, the replay took place just three days later and also ended 0-0in front of
60,349 at Goodison. A second replay was needed and took place the following week at Molineux, the home of Wolverhampton 
Wanderers, and goals from Derek temple and Fred Pickering sealed the victory for the Blues. 

Waiting for Everton in the semi final were Manchester United and so determined were the Blues to reach the final that they fielded
eleven reserves in the league game at Leeds United the week before they met United. Not surprisingly Everton lost the game, 4-1, 
and were subsequently fined £2,000 by the Football Association. Two weeks before the United game Everton suffered a blow 
when Fred Pickering limped out of the game against Sheffield United and was still to make a recovery. Catterick replaced him with 
a relative unknown 21 year old Cornishman, Mike Trebilcock, who had joined the club the previous December for £20,000 from 
Plymouth Argyle. 

The semi final took place at Burnden Park, Bolton and interest in the game was immense with fans sleeping in their cars overnight
and crowds started to form outside of the ground from 7 o’clock in the morning; British Rail laid on several extra trains to ferry fans 
from Liverpool’s Exchange station. With the largest crowd expected at Bolton since the 1947 disaster, when 33 people died, concerns
were raised as to the choice of venue as the ground was ill-equipped to cope with such volumes of people. Worries were confirmed
at half time when fencing in one corner gave way and hundreds of fans spilled on to the pitch and had to watch the second half sitting
on the cinder track that formed the perimeter of the pitch. 

United were overwhelming favourites to reach the final but in an uneventful first half that was littered with poor passing and scrappy
play, Everton had more than held their own. The second half continued in the same vein, however, the longer the game went on the
more confident the Blues became. With 12 minutes a Wilson clearance from defence was headed on to Temple by Young, and he
set off down the left wing. Spotting Harvey unmarked in penalty area, Temple found him with a perfect pass, and the Everton mid-
fielder found the corner of the United net with a low accurate shot. 




                                           

Everton had reached their first FA Cup final for 33 years and were to meet Catterick’s previous club, Sheffield Wednesday. For the fans
the main concern was how were they going to obtain tickets and despite Wembley holding 100,000 only 15,000 were made available
for the general public of each club. Everton decided to allocate the tickets based on season tickets ending on a certain number, these
were soon snapped up but on the day of the final it was clear that many thousand more fans from Merseyside had obtained entrance
to the stadium. 

There were still three league games left to play and the two first team regulars that missed the semi final featured in them; Pickering 
in all three and Tommy Wright in two. It was presumed that both would return for the final, Harry Catterick had other ideas. When the
 final 1 was announced Wright was back at right back but the manager sprung a major surprise when he kept faith with Trebilcock 
and left Pickering out of the side. 

On reaching the final Wednesday had played every round away from home and Everton had done so by not conceding a goal, a fete 
notachieved for 63 years. Everton were huge favourites but Sheffield did not let that effect them and more than played their part in 
one of greatest finals in the long history of the Cup. 

 Catterick’s decision to leave Pickering out of the team seemed to have been a serious error of judgement because after just four 
minutes Wednesday took the lead through Jim McCalliog. Everton were having difficulty in breaking down the Sheffield defence and 
they went into the half time interval 1-0 down. Things got worse on 59 minutes when Gordon West could not hold onto a fierce drive 
from Johnny Fantham and the ball ran to David Ford, who scored with ease. A lifeline was thrown to the Blues within two minutes 
when Mike Trebilcock pounced on a Derek Temple knock-down to pull a goal back. 

 Everton began to pile the pressure onto Sheffield and three minutes later they were level. An Alex Scott free kick was only partially 
cleared and Trebilcock struck again from close range to equalise. The Yorkshire side regained their composure and extra time was 
looming when Everton received a priceless piece of fortune. When Wednesday’s centre half Gerry Young let the ball slip under his
 foot; it landed at Derek Temple’s feet and with only goalkeeper Ron Springett in front of him he shot from the edge of the area, and
 despite the keeper getting his hand to the ball, scored to complete an unbelievable comeback. 

DATE: 07/05/1966

Line ups:

EVERTON: West; Wright, Wilson; Gabriel, Labone, Harris; Scott, Trebilcock, Young, Harvey, Temple .

MANCHESTER CITY: Springett; Smith, Megson; Eutace, Ellis, Young; Pugh, Fantham, McCalliog, Ford, Quinn 

GOALS: EVERTON - Trebilcock (59 and 64 mins), Temple (74 mins)

SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY- McCalliog (4 mins), Ford (57 mins)

ATTENDANCE - 100,000

                                                                                                        . The medal above is Brian Labone's from the Cup Final