CITY 0 CHELSEA 1
League Division 1
5th October 1985
attendance 20,104
scorer Dixon(10)
Ref M Peck
City Nixon, May, Power, Clements, McCarthy, Phillips, Lillis, Wilson, Melrose, McNab, Simpson – Sub Tolmie(60)
Chelsea Niedzwicki, Wood, Rougvie, Pates, McLaughlin, Bumstead, Nevin, Hazard, Dixon, Speedie, Spackman – Sub Canonville
FROM THE PRESS BOX
DEREK HODGSON WRITING IN THE OBSERVER 6TH OCTOBER 1985
Maine Road was buzzing with speculation that Billy McNeill will soon be called upon to replace the late Jock Stein as Scotland’s manager.
City might persuade him to stay by finding more money to strengthen the team but the club that once fielded two £1M players is, as they say in Moss Side, skint.
Chelsea, in unfamiliar red, were cheered on by strong support from the ungodly hour of 11.30, the City Council confirming their concern for under-privileged minorities by bussing them up from Piccadilly Station. Their team are a curious blend of the incisive and the ungainly.
For a half-hour Chelsea played like the third-ranked team in England, Dixon’s pace and Nevin’s skills turning City’s back four embarrassingly. Nixon, William’s successor in City’s goal, was a bag of nerves.
After 10 minutes of Spackman’s cross, floated in on a sunny, blustery morning, was headed on by Bumstead for Dixon, who can sometimes move like Sugar Ray Leonard, to lob over the goalkeeper. It was a deserved, well-worked goal, seemingly the forerunner of several.
What City have rarely lacked under McNeill is spirit. Under the aegis of McNab, who emerged as the game’s best performer, they began harrying Chelsea’s midfield and harrassing the back four.
But seven first half corner kicks were negated by crass inefficiency, Niedzwicki being troubled just once when Phillips’s 25 yard cannonball was cleared by McLaughlin. The second half was a similar story, Melrose being replaced by Tolmie, who promptly blazed wide from 10 yards.