20 years ago

[Amber Aleman]

As nobody else has started a Coventry thread, I suppose I'd better kick one off.

What are your random memories of 7 January 1989? Here are a few of mine.

1. Having no idea who'd scored our opening goal (until Tony D's announcement) and asking vaguely, "was it Nigel?"

2. One of my cousin's university mates (from Macclesfield and with no affiliation to Sutton) jumping up and down so excitedly after that goal that he dropped his keys so we had to scrabble around in the shoebox looking for them

3. Fans fighting in the Coventry end at half-time.

4. Thinking Coventry had scored a second equaliser about ten minutes from the end

5. Wandering drunkenly through the streets of Sutton about midnight chanting "2-1" ;D

6. Buying several national newspapers the next day

[Andy K]

Hmmmmm mine were

1. Standing in a part of the ground I've never stood in since (the terracing to the right as you go in at the GGL end)
2. Getting there stupidly early
3. Staring at the scaffolding above the covered terracing
4. Going mental at Tony's goal
5. Giving Dave Bennett abuse at each corner
6. Not realising Matt had scored for about 5 mins afterwards
7. My dad pushing me over the fence at the pitch invasion at the end
8. Hugging Vernon Pratt
9. Seeing myself jumping like a loon at Final Score report
10. Smiling all the way through Match of the Day, having little idea of the impact of the event i'd witnessed that day.

Happy days indeed....."Golley, Rains....and a goal.....and they have done it"
"ooooooo and driven in! Matthew Hanlan followed that in....."

[Rax]

I was 7 years old (6 if I think about it properly but turned 7 in August) so was probably out playing with my Go-Kart or something! Didn't even know about Sutton then if I'm honest.

Sorry if this makes anyone feel old.

[wellie]

Walking through the recreation ground before the game.A group of Coventry fans asked me if i had a calculator as i would need it to add up all the goals they were going to score!
Tossers!
Why hasnt the club done anything to mark the aniversary of our greatest day?
What made that day even more special was the fact we were playing a full strength Coventry side.A large number playing that day had been in the cup winning team 18months earlier.WE HAD BEATEN THEIR BEST SIDE!not a second eleven.
I also remember tears of joy running down my face at the final whistle and having a bloody good night afterwards.

[DaveF]

Putting money on for a group of friends at 8/1 and KNOWING it was a banker bet !

Getting there stupidly early and watching Bruce panic about everything

Missing the first goal because I was in the kitchen getting teas for all the reporters. I heard a cheer, knew we must have scored and gave Mrs Press Secretary a hug. That's even rarer than a non-league side beating a top flight team !

Staying at the club until closing time, downing 16 pints and feeling fine because of all the adrenalin

[DaveF]

We are planning something, but it's only worthwhile if we can involve the team and that's proving hard to arrange.

[Andy K]

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=L3qFbfiEqb4

Just in case you wern't there

[frakey]

I was a the ground at 9am for breakfast & then a atrol to remove potential missiles etc. After that I was - as ever it would seem - on car ark duty. I walked into the ground 15 mins before ko & could not believe how packed it looked. I stewarded on the running track at the GGL end.

After the game I grabbed a corner flag got rid of it & then went o/s to direct traffic in GGL - nor sure why the police hadn't thought of that!

I did get drunk that night but will reveal more of the day later in the season in my top 20, no?

[cheshire]

Not often I can contribute as I rarely get to games these days (although keep up to date here) but was certainly thinking about that fantastic day (is it really 20 years ago?)

My main memories were:

1. the atmosphere in the ground when walking in, there was real buzz about the place (no surprise really)
2. seeing loads of people there I knew (relatives, old school friends, etc) who were not regulars
3. thinking how we were sure to get turned over big style as we had had all the glory the previous year with our 2 epic matches versus Middlesborough
4. The goal at the GGL end having a charmed life in the 2nd half-to this day I have never seen a shot ricochet off the post and onto the bar and out again like it did that day! I turned to the person next to me and simply said "that settles it, we'll win now. Its just not their day!"
5. I didn't realise it at the time but in the 32 minutes from the time of the winning goal until the final whistle, we did not concede a single free kick. When you consider the frantic defending, its astounding.
6. Wry smile from Barrie Williams (studio guest on the Breakfast news Monday morning) as he watched Norwich City (away) come out of the hat during the live 4th Round draw
7. Having bored my Uni mates for weeks previously about the big game to come, arriving in the Students Union bar on Sunday night to a rousing chorus of "C'mon Sutton!!" and " Was that your ugly mug I saw on Final Score yesterday??".

Happy days!

[Dave L]

1. The build-up and buzz beforehand
2. An atmosphere at GGL that I'd never seen before or since
3. "Chelsea reject, Chelsea reject" (David Speedie), "You're not singing any more...!"
4. The match seeming to go on forever after we scored our second
5. The pitch invasion
6. Recreating the goals in the garden at home!
7. Sutton on the tele - "How did that stay out?"

[os]

Full Match DVD available from the club shop for just a tenner, so why rely on your memory when you can watch the whole thing over and over again

[Stewart]

By Simon Hart

"WE WERE pretty useless and it felt like none of us wanted to be out on that cold, damp Saturday morning."

It was January 7, 1989 and Matthew Hanlan and his Sutton United teammates were limbering up for their FA Cup third-round meeting with a Coventry City side sitting in the top six of the old First Division.

Out on Collingwood Rec, a stone's throw from their Gander Green Lane stadium, the Conference part-timers' final practice session did not go to plan. "I remember my feet being really cold, " said Hanlan. "I put them in a warm bowl of water to put some life back into them. But in the afternoon everything that could go right did and the rest, as they say, is history." Hanlan, then 22, turned in the closerange winner from one of the corner routines the squad had rehearsed on the Rec, and toppled a Coventry team featuring eight players who, 20 months earlier, had lifted the Cup at Wembley.

No non-League team have triumphed over top-flight opposition in the competition since and his side's 2-1 win ensured 15 minutes of fame – not to mention five minutes on the Terry Wogan show – for bricklayer Hanlan.

Overlooked for the previous season's third-round tie against Middlesbrough, the right winger was only facing Coventry because first-choice Mickey Cornwell had broken a leg.

Small wonder Hanlan cites the finger of fate. "Everything we had practised came to fruition, " he said. "The pitch was probably the biggest factor – it was wet, sandy and cut up, which was not conducive to two-touch football." For the 8,000 fans crammed inside Gander Green Lane, hopes of an upset rose three minutes before the break.

"We got a corner, Micky Stephens got a flick-on at the near post and Tony Rains headed it in, " said Hanlan. "That got everybody thinking, 'We're not bad after all', and it went on from there." Coventry equalised seven minutes after the restart and Hanlan blames himself. "David Phillips scored, cutting in from the left, and I probably should have tracked him. We wondered then whether the floodgates might open." Instead, with 59 minutes gone, a short corner led to his history-making strike from inside the six-yard box.

"Phil Dawson chipped the ball across, " said Hanlan. "I'd started my run out wide but no one really picked me up and I came through a crowd of players and found myself in front of an open goal. I thought, 'Crikey, don't miss'. That was it and I went off on my silly run.

"In the last 15 minutes I don't know how we didn't draw or lose. Trev Roffey made two or three great saves, we cleared a couple off the line. It must have been our day." Hanlan's hour in the sun had begun. "The final whistle went and it was utter mayhem, " he said. "Tony and I got dragged off to do a load of interviews and we spoke to Trevor Brooking, who was on Radio 2 at the time. We stayed at the club until about midnight and then went back to someone's house to relive it all on Match of the Day. Sunday was just as hectic – I had all the press at my mum and dad's house." The next day, Hanlan's shift on the building site was cut short by a message to rush home. "I thought, 'Oh, there's problems' but when I got there it turned out I was needed on Wogan that night. Tony and I were whisked up to Shepherds Bush. We were only on for five minutes or so, but it was more nerve-wracking than playing Coventry.

"My big dream was to play professional football and with the level of attention from the media, I thought, 'This has got to be the start'." Instead Hanlan came down to earth with a bump as Sutton were crushed 8-0 by Norwich in the fourth round. "It all fell flat, " he said. "I had naively thought we could beat them." As Sutton's giant-slaying side broke up the following season, Hanlan moved on to upwardly-mobile Wycombe. However, a ruptured medial ligament ended his hopes of making an impact under the "superb" Martin O'Neill and he started a tour of neighbouring non-league outposts with spells at Dorking, Molesey, Farnborough and Carshalton.

Then it was back to Sutton where, having initially retired at 31, he changed his mind and "had three or four good years and played on until I was 37".

Now 42 and the commercial director of a building company, Hanlan never tires of reliving the day he shot down Goliath. "I've dined out on it ever since, " he said. "You get to this time of year and can more or less guarantee someone will call, which is great. Some players go through a whole career without any recognition. I'm very lucky to still be known for doing something special." Hanlan will be an interested observer this weekend when Barrow and Blyth Spartans seek the Premier League scalps of Middlesbrough and Blackburn respectively.

"The gulf between the Premier League and the rest is bigger than when we played Coventry." he said. "The money and amount of foreign players have moved the top flight further away.

"But look at Havant and Waterlooville, they gave Liverpool a shock last season. That shows it is still possible so they should be encouraged by that." A bowl of warm water may help, too.

[Stewart]

Clive Tyldesley

3 January 2009
The Guardian
© Copyright 2009. The Guardian. All rights reserved.
Sutton Utd 2-1 Coventry City 1989

Tony Rains and Matt Hanlon, below, scored for the Vauxhall Conference side. David Phillips scored for City

"I seem to remember the Sutton manager, Barry Williams, was an English teacher and you could tell that when he was interviewed after the game - I remember this very measured, well-spoken, erudite man. I also remember some Sutton players were on Wogan a few days later and that is the kind of thing that happened then - FA Cup third-round shocks were real national news"

[taz]

The first one posted by Stewart is basically what appeared in the Daily Express last weds.

[jencor]

I have so many memories, but the ones that stick in my mind are how difficult I found it watching the match from a seat in the stand........I much prefer standing and kept standing up! Seeing my younger sister sitting a few feet from the goal taking pictures of the action and getting quite jealous!!(She was training to be a sports photographer at the time). Going crazy at the final whistle and wishing I could get onto the pitch to join the celebrations! Buying every Sunday newspaper and making sure my car was duly festooned with Sutton United colours on my trip back to Germany the next day and being welcomed by a very disgruntled Gate Guard who was a Coventry supporter as I arrived back at my Unit. ;D The only downside was I got chicken pox 3 days before the Norwich match and was stuck in quarantine but received a huge get well card signed by all the players. Must be worth a bit of money now, but I'd never sell it as it's priceless to me. With all that was going on for the players at the time, it was a great gesture. Great memories, great team and great result! ;D