FA Cup 1945-46

The FA Cup of 1945-56 was the first official football competition in England after World War Two had ended.

Hull City and New Brighton from the Third Division (North) did not enter as neither had a ground available and strangely Second Division Newport County were not given a bye to the Third Round as other First and Second Division clubs were, and entered the competition at the First Round stage.

Conversely, Third Division clubs Cardiff City, Chester, Crystal Palace and Norwich City were all awarded byes to the Third Round.

Chester had finished the 1938-39 Third Division (North) season in 6th place, while Crystal Palace had finished 2nd (behind promoted Champions Newport) in the South with Cardiff City in 13th. Norwich City were newly relegated from the Second Division.

Every tie of the competition from the First Round to the Quarter-Final was played on a two-leg Home and Away basis with the ties drawn on a regional basis. 

The two-leg arrangement was made in order to give clubs additional revenue, as the Football League would not resume its normal schedule until August 1946.

In the event of aggregate scores being level after 90 minutes of the second leg had been played, the FA rules were that the match should be "played to a finish".

Of the 34 First Round ties, only the tie between Mansfield Town and Gainsborough Trinity needed extra-time. Mansfield won the first leg 3:0 but were losing by the same score after 90 minutes in the second leg. Twenty minutes of extra-time was played with Mansfield winning the tie 5:4 on aggregate.

None of the 17 Second Round ties needed extra-time, but in the Third Round there were four ties still undecided after 90 minutes of the second leg had been played. All second leg matches were played in midweek with 2pm kick-off times, and all four undecided ties were played on Wednesday, 9th January.   

Two of the four - the Everton v Preston North End and York City v Chesterfield ties - were tied at 3:3 on aggregate.

Preston's penalty was scored by Bill Shankly, and this is possibly the only 'golden goal' in FA Cup history. Coincidentally, Joe Fagan also scored on this day, twice for Liverpool in a 2:1 win over Chester.

It's unclear whether the rules were meant to mean 'next goal wins' once a 20 minute extra-time period had been completed, or whether additional extra-time periods should be completed until a winner was decided, but apparently Everton decided enough was enough. Rules are made to be broken and if there was a provision for a Golden Goal, it wouldn't have been a new idea since this rule was in place for the Youdan Cup played in 1867, a competition which preceded the FA Cup by four years. 

Norfolk beat Bromhall 1:0 after sudden death overtime. 

The same 'sudden death' rule was also agreed by the captains of Garrick and Wednesday in the Cromwell Cup Final played at Brammall Lane the following year after 90 minutes of play had seen no goals. 

The other two ties without a winner were Nottingham Forest v Watford who had drawn both their matches 1:1 and Queen's Park Rangers v Crystal Palace who had failed to score a goal between then in 180 minutes.  

Both matches, then went into extra time with ten minutes each way to be played, but with no further scoring in this additional period, the ties remained unsettled.

At Crystal Palace, the second period of extra-time was ended after 7 minutes when "the referee called the players off the field in almost total darkness", while at Watford the second 20 minutes of extra-time was completed, but after three minutes of a third, and a total of 133 minutes of play, the referee abandoned the game. With the matches kicking off at 2pm in mid-January, this is understandable.

 

It appears that there had been no thought given to this outcome, but it was quickly ruled by the FA that the ties should be replayed on a neutral ground.

The Queen's Park Rangers v Crystal Palace tie was played at Fulham's Craven Cottage, and won 1:0 by QPR while Tottenham Hotspur's White Hart Lane hosted the Watford v Nottingham Forest replay which was won 1:0 by Watford. 

In the Fourth Round, the tie between Middlesbrough and Blackpool was 5:5 on aggregate after 90 minutes of the second leg, and an hour of extra-time was played before the game was abandoned due to bad light.

The precedent had been set and the replay was held at Leeds United's Elland Road with Middlesbrough winning 1:0. 

Other clubs requiring extra-time to advance from the Fourth Round were Sunderland (who beat Bury) and Preston North End (again) who defeated Manchester United with Bill Shankly again among the scorers.

No Fifth Round or Quarter-Final ties required extra-time, but the second leg of the Bolton Wanderers v Stoke City tie in the Quarter-Final round was marred by tragedy when 33 spectators died in a crush. The incident happened shortly after kick-off and played was stopped after 15 minutes due to encroachment. Players left the field for 26 minutes before the match resumed. The referee, George Dutton, was made aware that there had been fatalities, but stated that he did not pass this information on to the two captains. 

There were no goals in the game and Bolton advanced due to their 2:0 win at Stoke in the first leg. The disaster was the worst in British football at the time. 

The Semi-Final tie between Derby County and Birmingham City needed a replay and extra-time. 

On Saturday, 23rd March, the two teams met at Hillsborough, Sheffield and drew 1:1. Four days later, the replay was held at Maine Road, Manchester and at the end of 90 minutes there had been no goals. A 30 minute period of extra-time was played during which Derby scored four goals.

Derby met Charlton Athletic in the Final and once again required extra-time after Charlton's Bert Turner scored an own goal in the 85th minute and another for his own side a minute later.

In extra-time, Derby scored three more goals, all by the two players who had scored in the semi-final extra-time - Peter Doherty and John Stamps.