SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY 4 CITY 1
League Division 1
9th March 1963
attendance 17,424
scorers
City Harley(54)
Wednesday Dobson(39), Layne(56, 69 & 80)
Ref R Tinkler
City Dowd, Betts, Sear, Benson, Leivers, Pardoe, Dobing, Kennedy, Harley, Gray, Wagstaffe
Wednesday Springett, Johnson, Megson, McAnearney, Swan, Eustace, Finney, Quinn, Layne, Fantham, Dobson
…The ‘big freeze’ meant that after seeing their side draw 2-2 at home to Everton on 22nd December, 1962 Wednesdayites didn’t see another league game at Hillsborough until Manchester City visited on 9th March 1963, a gap of eleven weeks!
A crowd of 19,424, along with persistent rain, welcomed the teams with the immediate problem for Wednesday being how they would break down City’s defensive formation of five deep lying midfielders. Most of the first period was spent in the visitors half of the field, but just as it seemed that Wednesday wouldn’t break through before the interval, they duly did when a superb Layne cross was headed home by Colin Dobson.
Wednesday continued to attack at the start of the second period, but nine minutes into the second half City stunned the Owls faithful by grabbing a shock equaliser through a Alex Harley effort. This galvanised Wednesday and within two minutes they were back ahead when David ’Bronco’ Layne’s persistence forced a defensive error which he capitalised on to walk the ball into the net.
It was 3-1 after 69 minutes through Layne’s close range effort and with ten minutes left, Layne, who had signed from neighbours Bradford City the previous summer, completed his first hat-trick for the club with a spectacular rocket shot to cap off a well deserved 4-1 success for Wednesday
TAKEN FROM AN ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAYS PROGRAMME ON 17TH SEPTEMBER 1994