1974 FA Cup final

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1974 FA Cup final

The twin towers at Wembley Stadium
Event	1973–74 FA Cup
Liverpool Newcastle United 3 0
Date	4 May 1974
Venue	Wembley Stadium, London
Referee	Gordon Kew (Bucks)
Attendance	100,000
Weather	dry, overcast, cool with very little wind
← 1973 1975 →

The 1974 FA Cup final was an association football match between Liverpool and Newcastle United on Saturday, 4 May 1974 at Wembley Stadium, London. It was the final match of the 1973–74 FA Cup, the 93rd season of England's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup. Liverpool were appearing in their fifth final and Newcastle in their eleventh, which was a record at the time. Liverpool had won the FA Cup once, in 1965, and Newcastle six times, most recently in 1955.

Both teams entered the competition in the third round. Liverpool and Newcastle had scares in the third and fourth rounds, in all cases drawing home ties against much smaller clubs and then winning the replays. Both had good wins in the fifth round and Liverpool won away in the sixth (quarter-final) round. Newcastle's sixth round home tie against Nottingham Forest was declared void after a riot on the field by Newcastle fans when their team was losing 1–3. The game was delayed until order was restored and Newcastle won it 4–3. Forest made a written protest to the Football Association (the FA) and Newcastle were very close to being disqualified from the competition. The FA relented and ordered that the match must be replayed at a neutral venue. Two replays were needed before Newcastle won through. In the semi-finals, Newcastle defeated Burnley 2–0 at Hillsborough and Liverpool defeated Leicester City 3–1 in a replay at Villa Park, following a 0–0 draw at Old Trafford.

The final, televised live, was watched by a crowd of 100,000 and Liverpool won a one-sided match 3–0 with goals by Kevin Keegan (2) and Steve Heighway. After the third goal, BBC TV's match commentator David Coleman said that Newcastle's defence had been "stripped naked" by Liverpool.^[1] When the score was 0–0, Liverpool left back Alec Lindsay had a goal disallowed for Keegan being offside, but replays later showed that the final rebound pass to Lindsay came from a Newcastle defender and therefore the goal should have stood. Liverpool won the FA Cup for the second time.

The team managers Bill Shankly (Liverpool) and Joe Harvey (Newcastle) sat next to each other all through the match. It was Shankly's last game in charge of Liverpool as he retired in July and was succeeded by coach Bob Paisley – though Shankly led the team out for the Charity Shield match in August. Harvey retired at the end of the 1974–75 season. Two Newcastle players, Terry McDermott and Alan Kennedy, became Liverpool players in later years and both scored goals for Liverpool in European Cup finals. Kevin Keegan joined Newcastle as a player in 1982 and was their manager in the 1990s.