CITY 1 CHELSEA 1
League Division 1
21st March 1990
Attendance 24,670
Scorers
City Quinn(19)
Chelsea Durie(10)
Ref T Simpson
City Dibble, Harper, Hinchcliffe, Reid, Hendry, Redmond, White, Allen, M Ward, Quinn, Megson – Subs Heath(unused), I Brightwell(unused)
Chelsea Beasant, Hall, Dorigo, Bumstead, Johnsen, Monkou, McAllister, Nicholas, Dixon, Durie, Wilson
A DEBUT GOAL FOR NIALL QUINN
From NIALL QUINN, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I played my first game for City against Chelsea at Maine Road, misweek. We’d won just once in the previous twelve games and we were in the bottom three with our toes tagged for the relegation morgue.
I scored after nineteen minutes, a ‘Blue Moon’ goal, David White picked up, he saw me standing alone, he crossed, I hammered it home. When I looked, the moon had turned to gold. It felt like such a release. I was a footballer again. I didn’t know Maine Road so I ran to the Chelsea fans and celebrated in front of them. The City fans thought I was one cocky bastard and it was a bit of a love story from then on.
We played well that night. I shaved the crossbar, got a good save out of Dave Beasant and we drew one all, which was enough to float us out of the bottom three. Oh, happy man!
From DAVID WHITE, SHADES OF BLUE by David White with Joanne Lake
Prior to the game Howard had shocked us all by naming his new signing [Quinn] up front and leaving out left back Andy Hinchcliffe. The five at the back formation was scrapped, with Alan Harper switching to full back.
“I also want Whitie and Wardy out wide” he added, prompting my team mate and I to glance quizzically at each other, unsure which flank we’d each been assigned to. Howard noticed our puzzled expressions and took us to one side.
“I’m not bothered where you play, lads just sort it out between yourselves”, was his advice.
Much to my relief Wardy agreed to occupy the left birth, which he’d go on to do for most of his fifty plus appearances. This added a great balance to the team, as we complimented one another’s games extremely well. City v Chelsea ended up as a 1-1 draw (I remember our visitors sporting an horrendous red and white horizontally striped kit).
I can still visualise our equaliser; I found myself with the ball on the right, and crossed it into a dangerous area about twelve yards out, where Niall Quinn was luring, the Irishman, who was so lanky he barely had to jump, nonchalantly planted the ball in the corner of the net. Although it only earned us a point that night, we never looked back.
The Whitie-Quinny partnership had been born.
