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The Magic Of The Cup
Blyth Spartan's FA Cup run of 1977/78 went down in footballing history as one of the greatest stories football has ever seen.
Jump forward to this seasons cup and the pairing of these two famous clubs in the Fourth Qualifying Round of the cup has stirred memories of Blyth's historic exploits back then.
The match will be played on Saturday the 15th of October at Croft Park and will be an all ticket match, the club will make an announcement on timings of the sales soon.
Ticket information here
Spartans adventure in 1977 began with a comfortable 0-3 win away at Shildon in the 1st Qualifying Round. It was Saturday the 17thh of September 1977. The goals were scored by Brian Slane, Terry Johnson and Rob Carney.
In the 2nd Qualifying Round, Blyth were held to a 1-1 draw away at Crook Town with Steve Jones netting for the Spartans. It was the 8th of October 1977.
The replay was played the Tuesday after at Croft Park, Blyth won the match 3-0 with the goals coming from Terry Johnson, Ron Guthrie and Rob Carney. Over a thousand spectators were at Croft Park for the match.
The 3rd Qualifying Round on Saturday the 22nd of October saw Blyth pull off another convincing away win, running out 1-4 winners. Terry Johnson, Mick Dagless, Brian Slane and Steve Jones were the scorers that day.
Blyth won the 4th Qualifying round away at Bishop Auckland 0-1 on the 5th of November in driving rain and wind. Bishop had a goal disallowed right at the death to see Blyth go through. The only goal was scored by Ian Mutrie.
The Spartans went into the first round proper with a home game against Burscough. The game was played on the 26th of November 1977 and a single goal, again from Ian Mutrie sent Blyth into the second round for the ninth time in their history.
Blyth Spartans v Wrexham Sat 15th Oct
Kick Off has been moved to 1pm
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"I was at Middle School at the time, I was 10 years old and football fever had totally taken over the town. They told us we couldn't have a day off to go and watch the match so we decided we were going on strike!
As young as we were, we knew Blyth were doing something special that season. None of us had any tickets or money to buy them but we were determined to get in on the action.
The headmaster relented in the end and we all got the afternoon off and had planned to go to Croft Park in our droves! We still had no tickets but we had a cunning plan to sneak through a hole in the fence.
memory fades a bit now but we never did get to put our plan into action. Reading about the events of the time, it must have been because the game was played at St James' Park.
Happy happy days though."
The legendary Spartans team 1977/78
The opposition moved up a notch when Blyth hosted Chesterfield from the old third division on the 17th of December 1977 in the second round. Chesterfield weren't travelling well that season, only winning one of their away games so far in the league. Almost 4000 fans were inside Croft park to see Rob Jones score the winner in the 31st minute.
Chesterfield's manager went into the home dressing room at full time to congratulate the team on their victory.
Spartans opponents in the third round were Enfield Town from the Isthmian League. Enfield were on a fine run of form and were unbeaten in 32 games, they were the clear favourites to make it to the next round. It was Saturday the 17th of January when the game was played in front of over 5000 fans at Croft Park.
Blyth's toughest game of the cup so far, they were lucky to go into half time on level terms.
The second half was a bad tempered affair, after Alan Shoulder scored what proved to be the winner in the 72nd minute things got very heated. Enfield had a player sent off for violent conduct and that changed the game. Blyth went on to hold out until the final whistle.
It was beginning to look like Blyth were doing something very special.
"We’ve been beaten by non-league teams since that night back in 1978, but this was different. It was in our own back yard, six years after our club had lifted the League Cup at Wembley and just three seasons after we’d almost been crowned League Champions and gone close to knocking Ajax out of the UEFA Cup. Our glory days were well and truly over!"
Blyth went into the fourth round for the first time in their history. Their reward was a plum tie with Second Division Stoke City.
Nearly 19,000 spectators were at the Victoria Ground to watch an easy tie as one Stoke fan described it.
"After seeing us stuff Tilbury at home I was convinced Blyth would as easily be put to the sword-how wrong I was."
The match was postponed twice but was finally played on the 6th of February.
Terry Johnson scored a 12th minute goal to send the away team into half time with the lead. Blyth weren't looking out of their depth despite the huge gap in the two teams league positions. After the break Stoke levelled on 57 minutes and scored a second a few minutes later to turn the tie around. Garth Crooks of Match of The Day fame scoring the goal.
Late in the match Steve Carney scored from a free kick to draw Blyth level and then with the clock moving towards full time, Blyth were awarded a free kick and after hitting the wall, Terry Johnson smashed the ball into the back of the net.
The Spartans biggest giant killing was complete.
Blyth Spartans were in the 5th round of the FA Cup! they were the first non league team to make it that far for twenty nine years, Their opponents - Wrexham. But the opponents could actually have been a once in a lifetime tie against their iconic neighbours Newcastle United at St James' Park. Wrexham had beaten Newcastle 4-1 to set up the tie with Spartans.
The match at the Racecourse Ground was played on the 16th of February 1978.
Blyth took the lead in the 12th minute with another goal from Terry Johnson. A player from each team were shown red cards after a clash near the corner flag but despite several good chances for the Welshmen, the Spartans were leading into the final minutes. The referee wrongly awarded Wrexham a corner which Blyth dealt with but in the process conceded another corner, the second was caught by the Blyth keeper but the referee ordered it to be retaken after the corner flag had fallen over. Later, as the match was shown on Match Of The Day it was shown that the Wrexham player had removed the flag to give himself more room for the kick.
They scored from the corner kick with seconds remaining to take the tie to a replay and deny Blyth a quarter final clash with Arsenal.
Highlights of Wrexham v Blyth Spartans.
Brian Slane - Blyth player manager 1977/78
The replay was played on Monday the 27th of February 1978 and because demand to see it was so high, was played at St James' Park.
42,157 fans packed the stadium that night and many were locked out, ironically it was the highest crowd at St James' that season. Newcastle were having a torrid season. Blyth had captured the imagination of the country and the North East in particular. With the areas high profile teams already out of the cup you had the curious situation of both Newcastle and Sunderland fans getting behind Blyth which led to the bitterest of rivals cheering on the same team from the St james' Park terraces.
Spartans found themselves 0-2 down by half time and were again the victims of some questionable refereeing, being denied a clear penalty.
In the second half Blyth came out fighting and created chance after chance but had to wait until 7 minutes before the end to finally score, Terry Johnson with the goal.
The last few minutes were complete madness with the huge crowd roaring Blyth to score the equaliser. It wasn't to be however and the Spartans bowed out. The team left the St James' turf that night and walked straight into footballing folklore.
Rodger Thames hosting a programme about those famous days.
Coming back to the present day, Wrexham are a National League team, one league above Blyth. They are the third oldest professional football team in the world - founded 1864.
They have some rather famous owners in Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny, both A lister Hollywood actors. So will Croft Park be playing host to Deadpool and Ronald McDonald? we'll have to wait and see.
The match will be played on Saturday 15th October 1PM Kick Off. Ticket info here.
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