Banks’s other Wembley win
In the guise first of Stoke Ramblers, then plain Stoke and finally, in 1925, Stoke City, they have been playing football in their neck of the Potteries since 1868. But only once in 150 years have those red and white stripes claimed a major trophy. Here it is, the 1972 League Cup.
Stoke City beat Chelsea 2-1 in a Wembley final that was assumed to be a stage on which the Londoners would display their superiority.
Stoke goals from Terry Conroy and George Eastham altered that idea. Peter Osgood did score for Chelsea but their status as favourites was not franked by their performance.
As Osgood and Co trooped off, not knowing that Chelsea would not return to Wembley for a major final for 22 years, there was jubilant mayhem back in Staffordshire.
‘A carnival atmosphere,’ recalled Stoke’s goalkeeper Gordon Banks in his autobiography, which he said carried on ‘for days’.
Banks knew a bit about Wembley triumph and celebration. He said Stoke’s players joined their public ‘to the full’.
Banks also said production in the local mines and potteries ‘ rose dramatically’, and the open- top bus parade of the trophy was attended by 250,000 people.
‘ The Lord Mayor, Arthur Cholerton, was in the process of twinning Stoke with a town in Germany,’ Banks added.
‘At the civic banquet Mr Cholerton told us that his German counterpart had asked him, “Where is Stoke?” “It’s where the League Cup is,” replied Cholerton.’
It was the high point of Tony Waddington’s 17 years as Stoke manager. Promoted from the old Second Division in 1963, Stoke remained in the top flight until 1977.
It is a club which has never won the league and which, in 1970, had not been in an FA Cup semi-final since 1899.
But after promotion in 1963, Stoke reached the League Cup final in 1964 — losing to Leicester — and by the late Sixties there was a developing team under Waddington.
In 1971 Stoke re-wrote their FA Cup record by reaching the semifinal, when they were beaten in a replay by Arsenal in front of 62,000 at Villa Park.
They were strong enough to reach the semi-final again in 1972, when Arsenal were again the opposition. Once again a replay was needed and once again Arsenal won.
Two years later Stoke finished fifth in the top division and in 1975, did so again. Stoke City were serious and ambitious, and Banks’ opinion was: ‘ I firmly believed Stoke had a team good enough to win the title.’
That view looked accurate at the beginning of March in season 1974-75: Stoke were top of the First Division. Players of the calibre of Peter Shilton and Alan Hudson (from Chelsea) had been signed in addition to a squad that also had Geoff Hurst.
Hurst had been persuaded of Stoke’s ambition by Banks and left West Ham in August 1972. It was eight months after the two men had been central to an epic League Cup semi-final.
Banks and Hurst were on opposing sides on these occasions — four matches were required to separate the clubs.
In the original second leg, Banks saved a fierce penalty-kick from Hurst; in the second replay Bobby Moore also saved a penalty, having gone in goal for 20 minutes as dazed Hammers keeper Bobby Ferguson received treatment.
Stoke won this fourth game 3-2. It was at Old Trafford, where they had been in round four. A 1-1 draw there brought a replay at the Victoria Ground where another draw meant another replay.
George Best gave Manchester United the lead but Peter Dobing equalised before John Ritchie scored a late winner.
Having begun their League Cup at Southport, Stoke played 11 games to reach the final.
Perhaps that marathon and a first- ever Stoke City Wembley appearance gave them an edge that Chelsea did not understand.
Chelsea knew the turf and knew they were a fine team.
They had won the FA Cup in 1970 and a year later had beaten Real Madrid in the final of the European Cup Winners’ Cup.
Chelsea had already won in the league at Stoke that season. This was a sterling period for them.
Yet after just five minutes of the final, Stoke’s Dubliner, Conroy, headed the ball past Peter Bonetti to rock Chelsea back.
Osgood equalised on the stroke of half-time, but Eastham, then 35, scored the decisive goal midway through the second half.
Eastham, Banks said, had been exceptional in the second replay against United and now scored the winner in the final. Banks, though, was pretty important too — he was named Footballer of the Year in 1972.
It was 39 years before Stoke returned to Wembley for a major final — a loss in the FA Cup to Manchester City. 1972 remains a stand-out year for Stoke City.