ON THIS DAY

Terry Venables had a successful first match as England manager, David Platt scoring the goal in England’s 1-0 friendly win over Denmark at Wembley. Darren Anderton, Graeme le Saux and Matt le Tisser were all given their England debuts in the match.

The 6th Round FA Cup tie between Newcastle United and Nottingham Forest kept on hitting the headlines. In the first match at St James' Park on 9th March 1974 Forest were awarded a controversial second half penalty which saw the Magpie's Pat Howard being sent off for protesting the decision. George Lyall scored from the spot to give Forest a 3-1 lead at which point the crowd invaded the pitch forcing ref Gordon Kew to take the players off for an 8 minute break. When play resumed 10-man Newcastle scored three times to win the tie 4-3 and reach the semi-finals. Forest appealed against the result and an FA commission annulled the result and ordered that the match be replayed at a neutral venue. Newcastle weren't too happy, as you might expect, and not just because of the need for a replay. Joe Harvey, their manager said: ' Diabolical - if the result doesn't stand how can the sending off and booking still stand ?' Forest weren't totally overjoyed either as they wanted the re-arranged match to be played at the City Ground but a neutral venue it was with Goodison Park hosting the re-arranged match - and a further replay - before Newcastle again got their place in the semi-final draw.

The peace that followed the end of the Second World War saw a boom in attendances up and down the country. At Bolton's Burnden Park ground on March 9th 1946 65,419 were officially present to see Stanley Matthews and his Stoke City side play Bolton for a place in the semi-finals of the FA Cup. Unofficially probably 85,000 got into the ground and in circumstances that had many similarities to what would happen at Hillsborough 43 years later tragically 33 fans died in the crush with many more suffering serious injuries. Amazingly, after a short break, the match was played to a finish. The result seems unimportant.