ON THIS DAY

Ipswich Town defender Gary Croft was wearing an extra bit of kit when he came on as a 71st minute substitute in a First Division match against Swindon Town at Portman Road on Saturday 15th January 2000 - an electronic tag on his ankle. It was the first time in a League match that a tag had been worn and was the result being released after one month of a four month prison sentence he had received for driving while disqualified and perverting the course of justice. He also had a curfew from 7pm to 7am so it was a case of afternoon kick offs only until his punishment was over.

Newcastle United played their first match under new manager Kenny Dalglish, defeating Charlton Athletic in an FA Cup Third Round replay at St James’ Park. Dalglish lasted until the start of the 1998/99 season with his time at the club being described as 'the only part of Kenny Dalglish's career that came anywhere near failure.'

Second Division Liverpool were on the wrong end of an FA Cup shock, losing 2-1 away to Southern Leaguers Worcester City.

An historic day in Belfast where goals from Jimmy McIlroy Burnley) and Wilbur Cush (Leeds) brought Northern Ireland a 2-1 victory over mighty Italy in a World Cup qualifier. It meant that Northern Ireland qualified for their first World Cup finals while two-time World Cup winners Italy failed for the first time to get through the qualifying competition for the World Cup. But it might have been very different. There had been a previous attempt to stage that qualifier, on December 4th 1957. Sadly though the match referee, Hungarian Istvan Zolt, was fog-bound in London and was unable to reach Belfast for the match. In his absence there was no agreement on an alternative ref and with a 53,000 crowd expected calling off the fixture was not an alternative so the match was downgraded from a World Cup match to a friendly. The paying public were far from pleased with that and the police had to deal with a number of problems with an unhappy crowd. But the match ended 2-2 and had World Cup points been at stake it would have been Italy who would have gone to the World Cup finals. As it turned out it was Northern Ireland who went to those finals in Sweden – amazingly along with England, Scotland and Wales. Brazil won it!