Monday March 13th, 1972, is a date that is firmly locked in my memory bank. It was the day of the FA Cup 5th round second replay (yes we used to keep going until a game produced a winner in those days) between Arsenal and Derby which was played at Leicester City’s Filbert Street stadium. The first cup game was a 2-2 draw at the Baseball Ground in front of 39,622 (Durban, Hinton (pen) for Derby and a Charlie George double for Arsenal). The first replay at Arsenal kicked off at 2:45pm due to the 3 day week, a consequence of the industrial action by miners and railway workers. An astonishing 63,077 watched the game which was a 0-0 draw. 

On the day of the second replay, I went home from school early after telling my teacher I was feeling poorly then excitedly got ready to catch the bus to Burton railway station. Whilst we were waiting, the Burton Mail cameraman arrived and took photographs of the many Rams fans waiting to board the Football Special train to Leicester. When we arrived we queued to get into the Spion Kop end of the ground. The place was full of thousands of Derby fans and it was a noisy and exciting atmosphere.

The game kicked off 15 minutes late, apparently due to traffic issues between Derby and Leicester, with over 20,000 Derby fans in a crowd of 40,000 that was I suppose expected by the officials at Filbert Street. But within 5 minutes Arsenal took the lead. John McGovern played the ball back from the halfway line on a bone hard pitch and it went straight to Ray Kennedy who finished with a quality strike. Later in the game Derby pushed Roy McFarland up front to try and get the equaliser, but it was not to be as Derby huffed and puffed. The Rams had many chances but the Arsenal defence held firm to send Derby and their fans home with broken hearts and the chance of the double coming to an end. It was a depressing journey home and we thought our season was finished but little did we know that we would actually become English league champions for the first time. 

It was another amazing experience going to this match and we used to take these games for granted. We thought it would always be like this, playing massive games and fighting it out at the top of the Division One table. It was an amazing time to support the Super Rams and I feel privileged to have lived through these times.