When a Six-Five Special had the Bridge rocking By MICHAEL WALKER
The name John Sillett prompts thoughts of Coventry City, Wembley and the historic 1987 FA Cup victory over Tottenham. Sillett, along with George Curtis, was Coventry’s galvanizing manager that sunny day.
Long before that, though, Sillett was a robust full back good enough to play for Chelsea.
Signed in 1953 together with his older brother, Peter, by fearsome manager Ted Drake, Sillett was initially on the groundstaff as Peter became part of the team who would win Chelsea their first league title in 1955.
At 20, on January 1 1957, John joined Peter in the first team. he made his Chelsea debut in a First Division match at Old Trafford against a Manchester United side featuring seven of those who would be killed in the Munich air crash 13 months later. John Sillett, right back, was marking one of those players, David Pegg.
‘Young John,’ Sillett remembers Drake saying. ‘I’m putting you in. I didn’t know I’d be playing. And I’m marking David Pegg.’
Chelsea lost 3-0. It was some introduction to top-flight football.
The Silletts had joined Chelsea from Southampton in part to move away from their own tragedy. Their father Charlie had played for the Saints in the 1930s but when the Second World War broke out, he joined the Royal Navy.
Five months before the end of the war, Charlie’s ship, SS Corvus, was struck by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the coast of Cornwall. Charlie Sillett was killed. John was eight years old.
By September 1958 he was an established member of the Chelsea defence and recalls clearly what was undoubtedly the most amazing, crazy game of his career — against Newcastle United at Stamford Bridge.
‘That comes out top,’ he says, when considering a 14- year playing career.
No wonder. It was 60 years ago today that a game Sillett says was called ‘match of the century’ unfolded. It began with a goalless opening 18 minutes.
That did not set the pattern, however, as in the next 68 minutes, Chelsea and Newcastle rattled in 11 goals between them, the final four goalless minutes presumably spent in some sort of trance. The score was 6-5 to Chelsea and as a new pop music programme called Six-Five Special was on television, the game was instantly given that headline.
It was Chelsea’s Peter Brabrook who started the scoring and Sillett says Chelsea would have expected to win from that point on. ‘ We had this thing with Newcastle, we were their Jonah team. We’d get results against them with seven men.’
But Newcastle equalised through a winger, Billy Wright (not the england version). Len White then made it 2-1 to the visitors. It was approaching halftime when Jimmy Greaves intervened. Greaves was 18. he scored two in consecutive minutes.
‘I’d been in the youth team with Jimmy,’ Sillett adds. ‘You knew he’d be a major player. I remember, Chelsea signed the two best young players in england — Jimmy Greaves and David Cliss. What signings. Cliss went off the rails a bit. he could have been great.’
Chelsea led 3-2 but early in the second half Newcastle’s wingers, Wright and Gordon hughes, ran at them. Wright equalised — 3-3 — and Albert Franks and Reg Davies made it 5-3 to the Geordies.
But hughes was Chelsea’s problem. And Sillett was marking him — or was meant to be. ‘I was told to sort hughes out,’ he says. ‘Ted used to give you certain ideas: start at the neck and work up.’
What followed was ‘a collision’ that took hughes off the pitch for a period. During it, Tony Nicholas made it 5-4.
‘There was no better player than Tony Nicholas, in the mind of Tony Nicholas.’
hughes, a former miner, returned with a broken nose but had to leave again. ‘I’ve met Gordon since,’ Sillett laughs. ‘he worked with Jim Smith at Derby.’
Newcastle were still in the lead. That was until goalkeeper Stewart Mitchell rolled the ball to Bob Stokoe. The man who would become a Sunderland managerial hero was Newcastle’s centre half. ‘he was a lovely fella, Bob. hated the colour blue.’
Stokoe was not expecting the ball. Ron Tindall nipped in. It was 5-5. Tindall was a Chelsea striker for eight months of the year and a Surrey cricketer for the rest.
With four minutes left and Newcastle down to 10 men (no substitutes then), Tindall ran on to a cross and nodded in what proved to be the winner. ‘With Ron, it had to be a header.’
Breathless, it ended 6- 5 to Chelsea and on the final whistle the near-47,000 crowd broke into the song of the moment.
‘We couldn’t hear what it was at first,’ Sillett says. ‘But then we realised: “The Six-Five Special’s steamin’ down the line...”’`
Sillett’s still singing. Sixty years on.