40 years on, and this match remains one of the best games of football I have ever seen, as Chelsea beat then current European Champions Manchester United 3-2 in front of over 60,000 fans.
For games like these, that weren't all ticket, the only option to make sure you got in was to get to the ground as early as possible and queue! We got there about noon, and already the queue from Bovril entrance, where the boy's turnstiles were, was almost back to the big blue gates that pretty much still stand to this day.
Excited at the prospect ahead the 90 minutes before the turnstiles opened passed quickly and we finally got to take our places in the middle of the Shed, which inevitably was always the first part of the ground to fill up. A few rounds of Knees Up Mother Brown, where you hoped that a) you weren't one of those pushed down a few steps and b) if you were you weren't evicted from the ground by the idiot coppers who never seemed to twig that if you've just gone down 10 sets of steps you weren't the one who was doing the pushing! (1972 Leicester before I fell foul to that one).
As to the game Chelsea started like a train, Webb scoring in the second minute, and Hutchinson making it 2-0 shortly after. United steamed back and cut the arrears to 2-1 by half time through James. From then on it was end to end stuff but with United getting on top Chelsea scored a fantastic breakaway goal (very reminiscent of Geoff Hurst's 4th in the 1966 Final) as Bobby Tambling raced onto Ossie's through ball to fire past Stepney.
Denis Law made it 3-2 from the penalty spot but Chelsea hung on to record a fifth straight league victory.
** I have seen extensive match of the day highlights of this game on youtube, and was hoping to link in, but have been unable to find this video, if anyone can help, this classic should be shared by all **
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