CITY 1 LIVERPOOL 1
League Division 1
29th December 1976
attendance 50,020
Scorers
City Royle(35)
Liverpool Watson(88 og)
Ref Colin Seel
City Corrigan, Clements, Donachie, Doyle, Watson, Power, Owen, Kidd, Royle, Hartiord, Tueart – Sub Barnes(unused)
Liverpool Clemence, Neal, Jones, Thompson, Kennedy, Hughes, Case, McDermott, Heighway, Johnson, Callaghan – sub Fairclough(63)
JOE ROYLE PUTS CITY AHEAD
Over 50,000 fans were packed into Maine Road, hoping to see a classic match between these two entertaining sides, and the City fans knew a win would take the Blues level on 29 points with Liverpool at the top of the table.
Unfortunately Carlisle referee Colin Seel made the wrong decision to let the game go ahead on a pitch wich was frozen hard, and more like an ice skating rink than a football pitch. Tony Book said afterwards: “If people are looking to see skilful football they won’t get it on these sort of pitches.”
The players struggled to stay on their feet, and the game was strewn with errors. City took the lead ten minutes before the break, Emlyn Hughes struggled to control a bobbling ball in his own area and his attempted back pass was pounced on by Joe Royle, who poked the ball past Clemence.
The game had only a few chances, mainly for Liverpool, however with two minutes left it looked like City would take both points. However, when Ian Callaghan floated an innocuous ball towards the edge of the City box, Dave Watson, unaware that Joe Corrigan was coming out to take the ball, placed a simple header back to where he thought his keeper would be, the ball looped over Corrigan’s head and the City custodian couldn’t gain any purchase on the icy surface to stop the ball from slowly rolling into the net to give the scousers a share of the points.
A DEJECTED DAVE WATSON PUTS THE BALL INTO HIS OWN NET AND IT’S 1-1!
Remember the game very well, it was a very cold night and from what I can recall Corrigan said he slipped on ice as he was going back to retrieve Dave Watson’s header. Most of the Liverpool fans had left, I know, as I was standing right in front of their enclosure of the Kippax as to were they were sectioned. We lost the league by only one point that season.
You’d have won the league but for that og. Gotta admit, Dave Watson was a class act.
I’m a Liverpool fan and had left at 88mins thinking we had got beat 1-0
Got home to see on Granada News that the game had finished 1-1…freezing cold night
I remember that match. A fortunate draw for Liverpool
I remember this ice-cold match so well… too well. Even mid-season, City players and fans knew how important that late own goal was. City were the better team on the night and it’s interesting now to see the great names in the Liverpool team, including Ray Kennedy who died this week, RIP. Speaking as a City fan he had, still has, my great respect.