On This Day – 10th April
Football has long been used for experiments over the years. Golden Goal, Silver Goal and kick-ins replaced throw-ins in the 1994/95 season in the lower leagues in England, Belgium and Hungary.
One experiment trialled in the first five seasons of the 1970’s was a Third and Fourth Place Play Off between the two losing semi-finallists in the FA Cup.
The first of these play-offs was played on this day back in 1970 between Watford and Manchester United. Second Division Watford had been comprehensively beaten 5-1 by Chelsea in their semi-final and Manchester United had lost to Leeds United in a second replay.
For some reason, the neutral ground of Highbury was chosen as the venue.
Perhaps the choice of Arsenal’s ground explained the low crowd of 15,105. Those that did turn up for the game witnessed a comfortable 2-0 win for Manchester United.
In the next season, Stoke City and Everton played out the Play-Off at Crystal Palace’s Selhurst Park. This was quite a strange choice to host the game as London is quite a way for both sets of fans to travel to.
In the end, 5,031 hardy souls turned up to watch Stoke win the game 3-2.
The final three Play-Offs were played at the home of one of the two participants and this helped to boost attendances. The last of these play-offs was played between Leicester City and Burnley at the end of the 1973/74 season. The game was played at Leicester’s Filbert Street home, with the visitors winning 1-0 in front of only 6,458 fans.
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