Mark Lillis will never forget the weekend when Manchester City came back from 2-0 down to in the derby at Old Trafford - and lost a Wembley final 24 hours later.
But in 1986, that really happened.
Clive Wilson’s stooping header and an Arthur Albiston own goal earned City an unlikely point against United, and the following day they went down 5-4 against Chelsea in the inaugural Full Members Cup final.
Lillis thought he had scored a four-minute hat-trick, the fastest in Wembley history, in City’s late rally from 5-1 down. But he he only discovered one of his goals had been chalked up as an own goal when he asked referee Alan Saunders for the match ball - and found he had given it to David Speedie, who had scored his own treble for the winning side.
When City and Chelsea meet in the FA Cup semi-finals this weekend, it is fair to assume the players will be more fresh than their Wembley predecessors from 38 years ago. Lillis, now 64 and working for City’s academy, said: “When I tell people now that we drew the Manchester derby 2-2 at Old Trafford and then I scored twice in a Wembley final the next day, they look at me and wonder if I’ve lost the plot.
“But it’s true - we were 2-0 down against United but fought back to get a point in the season when they were 10 points clear at one stage but finished fourth. I finished the game at centre-back because our defender Kenny Clements had gone off with a bad injury. When we got a corner at the Stretford end in the last minute, I ventured forward towards the box because I wanted to be the hero who won it.
“But our captain, Paul Power, grabbed me by the neck and said, ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ I replied, ‘I’m going up to the Stretford end to win us the derby,’ and he soon put me right. Paul was more receptive when I asked him, on the bus down to London, if all the players and staff should be allowed one beer before we go to bed when we got to our hotel.
“We had just pulled off a great result at Old Trafford, so I ventured down the front of the coach and asked the gaffer, Billy McNeil, if we could have one drink as a nightcap. Billy hit the roof and said, ‘What do you think we are - a pub team?’ When I made my way back down the aisle, the lads were sliding under the tables in embarrassment.”
In the Full Members Cup final - a competition created in the wake of English clubs being banned from Europe after the Heysel disaster in 1985 - it appeared that fatigue had caught up promptly with City.
“We got off to a great start when Steve Kinsey put us ahead, but then David Speedie took over and we couldn’t handle him,” said Lillis, a lively striker City had signed from Huddersfield. “He scored a hat-trick and with five minutes to go, we were 5-1 down and thinking we had been humiliated in front of our families, friends and 68,000 fans.
“But then I scored with a header and a penalty, and in between those goals I got a touch on a cross which went in off Doug Rougvie’s arm.
“From 5-1 down, our fans were singing ‘We’re going to win 6-5’ and Chelsea were out on their feet, but we just ran out of time to find an equaliser. I thought I had scored the fastest hat-trick in Wembley history until I asked the ref for the match ball after the final whistle and he said my second one was an own goal.
“But Speedie thought I had scored a hat-trick because he came up to me with the ball and said, ‘We’ll have to cut this in half.’ It was my one and only appearance at Wembley as a player, and I still think of it as the hat-trick that never happened.”
Managers and sports scientists would squeal at the prospect of playing games on consecutive days now, but in the 1980s rotation was only for tumble dryers and kebabs on a rotisserie spit.
Lillis said: “The remarkable thing about that final is that 10 players on each side had played for 90 minutes the day before (Chelsea had won 1-0 at Southampton ). There was no squad rotation, no resting players. It beggars belief now that you could play in a big derby on a Saturday and then a Wembley final on the Sunday. If you got a knock, you would put ice on it, grit your teeth and rock up for the next one.
“I had a painkilling jab in my backside at half-time during the Wembley game because I had a little hamstring strain, which I had concealed from the gaffer in case he left me out.
“Although I finished on the losing side, that weekend still gives me goosebumps thinking about it - because you’ll never see it again.”
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