HULL CITY 2 CITY 1
Full Members Cup Northern Area Final 1st Leg
26th November1985
Attendance 5,213
Scorers
City Phillips(61)
Hull Bunn(49), McEwan(82)
Ref George Courtney
City Nixon, Reid, Power, Clements, McCarthy, Phillips, Melrose, May, Davies, McNab, Wilson – used sub Simpson(78)
Hull Norman, Jobson, Swann, Doyle, Skipper, McEwan, Williams, Bunn, Whitehurst, Askew, Brentano – used subs Pearson(15), Saville(77)
FROM THE PRESS BOX
PETER GARDNER WRITING IN THE MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS 27TH NOVEMBER 1985
Typical Manchester City, two super shows then the bubble bursts!
The Blues irritating unpredictability again surfaced with Wembley looming.
Hull City stunned them in the Full Members Cup northern final, winning 2-1 at Boothferry Park last night.
And the margin of success for a below average Second Division side would have been even greater but for the performance of Eric Nixon.
Nixon kept The Tigers at bay with a string of super saves, although he couldn’t hold the two shots that mattered.
The City goalkeeper could only parry a crisply hit angled attempt from Billy Askew, and Frankie Bunn followed up to hit his 14th goal of the season.
Then Nixon pushed out a Stan McEwan penalty nine minutes from the end, only to see the same player run in the rebound.
But you can’t blame Nixon entirely for a defeat that leaves City needing to score twice to win the second leg at Maine Road a fortnight tonight, away goals don’t count double.
The men in front of him turned in one of those pathetic performances for which City are notorious. Especially when riding the crest of a wave in the wake of meritorious success achieved at Nottingham Forest and home to Newcastle…