Interview ‘No fit strikers, so we got one from a Ceefax advert’
Sanchez recalls some of his amazing memories of Wycombe’s run to semi-finals of the FA Cup 20 years ago
It is an article of faith among Tottenham fans that a year that ends in “1” is good for their FA Cup ambitions. But as they take on Gareth Ainsworth’s Wycombe Wanderers in the fourth round tonight, they are facing a side whose most substantial moment in the competition also came in a year ending in “1”.
In 2001, the Chairboys, then in League One, made it to the semifinals, losing only by the odd goal to eventual winners Liverpool. And 20 years on from engineering what remains one of the finest Cup runs by a lower league team, the thenmanager, Lawrie Sanchez, still shakes his head in amazement at the memory.
“It became a snowball that took over the whole town, never mind the club,” he says. “The only thing that mattered was the Cup. It inverted every managerial norm: we were resting people in league games. We had a 20-penalty shootout that went on all night to decide an earlier round.
“I became convinced we were destined to win the thing. I remember coming off the pitch against Liverpool really disappointed. This was a Liverpool side that won five trophies that year and I thought we were going to beat them. It was that surreal an experience.”
And if anyone knows what a seismic Cup shock entails, it is Sanchez. After all, he scored the winner for Wimbledon in the 1988 final. In fact, from the moment he took over at Adams Park the previous season, he was never embarrassed about alluding to his “Crazy Gang” success.
“Oh yeah, I used it in team talks,” he says. “Not so much as an example of tactics but as character. I’d say things like, ‘Vinnie Jones was a hod carrier from Willesden who’s ended up in Hollywood, it just shows what belief in yourself can do’.”
Wycombe’s Cup run that year was a long haul, consisting, including replays, of 10 matches. It began in the first round with a win over nonleague Harrow Borough. From then on, at each stage the team they faced were higher up the pyramid.
By the fifth round, it was Wimbledon, then in the Championship. “Gareth [Ainsworth] was playing for Wimbledon in that game, so he’ll remember how mad that tie was,” Sanchez says. “We took them to a replay, then there was extra time with both sides down to 10 men, then we had a 20-penalty shoot-out and our goalkeeper scores the winning spot kick. After that, you really do think it’s your year.”
But it was in the sixth round, away at Leicester City, then fifth in the Premier League, that the narrative turned properly comic book. Wycombe’s winning goal was scored by Roy Essandoh, who Sanchez had recruited only a few days earlier via Teletext.
“That story encapsulated our Cup run,” he says. “It wasn’t made up. All true. We had all three centre-forwards with cruciate injuries. We were sat around ahead of that Leicester game discussing where we could get someone who could do us a job, wasn’t Cup-tied and was a free agent.”
Among the many forwards Sanchez approached were Ian Wright and Gianluca Vialli. But Wright was reluctant to steal someone else’s Cup thunder, while Vialli’s financial demands were well beyond Wycombe’s reach. “Then someone said, ‘Why don’t we advertise on Ceefax?’ I said, ‘Why not?’ And we got a call the following morning from Roy’s agent. Roy came in and trained. He wasn’t great, but he did OK. So I said we’ll play him in the league on Saturday. Imagine giving a trial to someone in a league game: that’s how mad it was. Again he did OK. So we take him and put him on the bench. And then he only goes and scores the winner. Not only that it was a fantastic header, a classic old-school jackknife, like something from the Fifties.”
Not that Sanchez saw the goal in the flesh. He had been sent off after berating the linesman for missing what Var would have spotted was a blatant penalty.
“Embarrassing,” says Sanchez of his dismissal. “You know ranting and raving does you no good. Doesn’t mean you can stop yourself. It’s a passionate game and that game was passionate.”
Footage of him watching the goal on a tiny television set under the stands at Filbert Street, celebrating in a mackintosh still soaked by an incessant downpour, became symbolic of the Cup’s delights.
“After the game, I told the chairman that we’d have to sign Essandoh,” Sanchez says. “He asked me why and I pointed out he’d just got us the goal to take us to the semifinal. So, we signed him to the end of the season. And that was the only goal he ever scored for us. Looking back, you think: that’s ridiculous.”
But it was not just Sanchez’s unorthodox recruitment that fuelled the run. Both Wycombe’s
‘Our Cup run took over the town, never mind the club’
1st round Wycombe’s campaign began with a straightforward 3-0 home victory over non-league Harrow Borough.
After a goalless draw, Wycombe beat fellow League One side Millwall 2-1 in the replay.
An extraordinary tie against Lawrie Sanchez’s old team Wimbledon, who included the current Wycombe manager, Gareth Ainsworth, in their side, featured two 2-2 draws, before the Chairboys prevailed 8-7 in a penalty shoot-out.
6th round
Victory over Premier League Leicester at Filbert Street was achieved with a winning goal from Roy Essandoh (left), signed two weeks before the tie after he answered an appeal on Ceefax.
Semi-final Liverpool had to summon Robbie Fowler and Emile Heskey from the bench to beat Wycombe at Villa Park. Heskey (below, centre) put Liverpool ahead in the 78th minute. Fowler added a second before a late Wycombe consolation for Sanchez (below) and his club’s supporters (below, far left).