Keith Houchen scores Coventry’s second goal at Wembley – no diving header has been so aesthetic or dramatic. Photograph: PA/PA Archive/Press Association Ima
A player who wasn’t great scoring a great goal in a great game is the stuff of FA Cup final dreams. Keith Houchen’s bullet header for Coventry remains one of the old tournament’s defining moments
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Consider: “Did you see that!” – I know you did; “Are you kidding me!” – I know you’re not; “What on earth!” – neither of us have a clue.
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Reactions like these distill what makes sport sport, shared moments of wonder and stupefaction where fantasy meets reality, our conception of the possible altered forever. It can’t be true, except that it is, but it can’t be, but it is, look! Exclamation!
Such pleasure speaks well of us: the most intense joy anyone can experience that we’ll never experience, paraded right in our faces while we vicariously gorge on the tiniest morsel without even wanting to die of envy, agony and shame. Or, alternatively, we simply make it about ourselves.
Keith Houchen’s goal in the 1987 FA Cup final encompasses all of these feelings, a moment that stands alone. Of course, there have been other showpiece blinders, but few so unexpected; Ricky Villa, Norman Whiteside, Roberto Di Matteo and Steven Gerrard were meant to do things like that, and Spurs, Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool certainly were. Houchen and Coventry City were not.
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The start of Houchen’s career was inauspicious – “I was one of those lads who had dreamed of being a footballer but was never sure if it would happen, ” he said. “I was 13 and going to places like Crystal Palace, hoping for a chance. But I just couldn’t get my break.”
He eventually joined Chesterfield but was released without making an appearance, ending up at Hartlepool United. But despite 65 goals in 170 games he never felt settled there, leaving for an underwhelming two-year stint at Orient before arriving at York City where he etched himself into FA Cup marginalia, winning and scoring the penalty that eliminated Arsenal in January 1985.
The following year he moved to Scunthorpe United and hated it. “It was the only time I ever gave up, ” he said. “It wasn’t the right club because it wasn’t going anywhere.” He even told his wife that he was “just going to take the money”, turning down offers from Bury and Preston North End to that end and finding himself in the reserves. There, he impressed in a game against Coventry, who made him an offer: £350 a week, £50 an appearance, £10, 000 to sign. He did, in June 1986.
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Coventry’s unbroken run in the top division then stood at 19 years, the third longest after Arsenal and Everton. But they had also been involved in nine relegation struggles, and in each of the three previous seasons had needed to win their final fixture to stay up. And in 104 years of existence they had never reached a cup final – much to Che Guevara’s apparent disgust.
Unusually, management duties at the club were shared. There was Big John Sillett, responsible for coaching, and Big George Curtis, responsible for everything else, two “characters” who were actually characters, their shared prefix based on more than corpulence and ego.
Sillett, or Snozz as he was known, was right-back for Chelsea’s 1955 league champions before Jimmy Hill took him to Highfield Road seven years later. When Hill then became chairman, Sillett was appointed coach; that was 1979.
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But in 1984 he fell out with Bobby Gould, Coventry’s manager, and was sacked. This forced him to spend time away from the game, during which he experienced an epiphany: football was supposed “to entertain by flair, passion and skill”. He vowed to achieve this in his next job.
Not long afterwards Gould was sacked and Don Mackay took over, reinstating Sillett. Then, when Mackay was also sacked with only three games remaining of the 1985-86 season, he and Curtis were placed in joint charge. Together, they kept Coventry up.
Curtis had also played for Coventry – 538 times, then a record – and captained them from the fourth to the first division, also helping Maurice Setters dispel the perception that, despite the accent, southern people can be hard and unhinged too. “A tank of a man”, said Kenneth Wolstenholme in 1967; “Godzilla”, offered Jimmy Greaves 20 years later, prompting Ian St John to observe that he’d lost weight since he stopped playing. “Actually, ” he went on, “Big George almost broke my leg … in his own testimonial game.”
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As a youngster, Curtis spent a year down the mines at Kent’s Snowdown Colliery, and never forgot the privilege of talent; while he prepared for Wembley, his brother and mates were still there. “Whoever pays you, you work your balls out, ” was his assessment of professional life. “We pay all our members of staff and I expect a job out of them.”
And didn’t his players know it – if they were late for the team bus, the doors would shut and they would have to pay him to get on. “I don’t think other managers can pick them up by the ears and bite their noses, ” he said. “But I don’t mind doing that.”
Essentially, the routine was good cop, bad cop/good cop, bad cop: Sillett was a charismatic softie given to extremes of emotion, while Curtis was calmer but tougher. Together, they built a family atmosphere in which their players were free to express themselves.
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“Dave Bennett and Cyrille Regis … have what I might call lazed around at other clubs and all of a sudden have been revitalised, ” said Sillett. “Because they’re enjoying their job.” Or, put another way, he understood management.
Between mid-September 1986 and May 1987, Coventry did not drop below tenth spot in the league, 26, 709 watching them beat Liverpool in April – their highest attendance in six years, generating record gate receipts of £101, 000. Indeed.
But it was the Cup that really got them going. After beating Bolton Wanderers in the third round they were drawn away to Manchester United in the fourth. The teams had not met in the competition since 1963, a game in which Sillett and Curtis both played.
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Bad luck with injuries meant that Keith was still more Whochen than Houchen – but not for much longer. On a slab of frozen mud miserable even by Old Trafford standards, Greg Downs – he of the two-tone hair and pre-match rice pudding – had his cross flicked square by Panini album dreamboat David Phillips. Houchen then won a tackle with Billy Garton, blocked Mick Duxbury’s clearance, poked a shot that Chris Turner saved, blocked the rebound with his face, then poked in from under the bar to complete a glorious mess of a goal.
“I can’t remember how many touches I had, ” he told Match of the Day. “It kept coming back off people and I kept stabbing at it, but I’ve got legs that are six foot long you see, so I got the last touch on it in the end.” “Are Coventry going to have a cup run?” asked Tony Gubba. “We’re having one, ” came back the reply.
And they were. A 1-0 win at Stoke City in the next round earned a quarter-final trip to Sheffield Wednesday, where Gary Megson equalised Regis’s opener before Houchen intervened once more. First, on 78 minutes, his deflected shot flew in and then, on 83 minutes, he chased down a long kick, charged down a feeble backheaded clearance, and strode into the box to finish easily. Suddenly, Whochen was pure hoachin’ with goals.
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“We had a great bunch of lads, who prepared for each round in exactly the same way, ” he explained. “By going to Fuengirola for a few drinks … it was just like a ride we got on. Never for one minute did I imagine that we were gonna go on and win the FA Cup that season.”
John Poynton, the club chairman, disagreed. Since before the turn of the year he’d been insisting that Coventry’s name was on the Cup, and now, all they had to do was beat Division Two’s Leeds United and they were in the final. Which was good enough for one supporter, a soldier stationed in Cyprus: he went awol, hitched a ride on an Italian freighter, and returned thereafter to escape a charge of absenteeism.
On their return to Hillsborough, Coventry went behind after 14 minutes and only the excellence of Steve Ogrizovic kept the deficit at one. But, though they came back into the game, they were still behind with 22 minutes left – until Brendan Ormsby, the captain whose monstrous header saw Leeds through the previous round, dallied on the ball, allowing Bennett to set up Micky Gynn for the equaliser. Even now, the mere mention of his name is enough to elicit shouts of “Just kick it out!”
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Shortly afterwards, Gynn bundled through three tackles and the ball broke to Houchen, who rounded the keeper to put Coventry in