Chelsea v Manchester City 1968/69

CHELSEA 2 CITY 0

League Division 1

2nd November 1968

Attendance 40,700

Scorers Baldwin(7), Osgood(51)

Ref Rex Spittle

City Dowd, Kennedy, Pardoe, Doyle, Booth, Oakes, Lee, Bell, Summerbee, Owen, Coleman – Sub Young(unused)

Chelsea Bonetti, Boyle, Webb, Harris, McCreadie, Osgood, Cooke, Houseman, Tambling, Baldwin, Birchenall – sub Hinton(60)

FROM THE PRESS BOX

John Boyle of Chelsea saw himself sent off, in colour, on Saturday night, and maybe saw enough to support a case before an FA disciplinary committee.
Chelsea have still to decide whether to call for the TV film as evidence but they may well be governed by incidents which folloWed Boyle’s dismissal.
Boyle was sent off after a clash with Manchester City left winger Tony Coleman and it led to some remarkable incidents.
Coleman was booed for the rest of the match and finally cut down by a revenge foul which was far too obvious to be missed by the Chelsea party who were invited to watch the colour re-runs of the game.
Chelsea manager Dave Sexton and City’s assistant manager , Malcolm Allison, exchanged comments at half-time, and City manager Joe Mercer said last night:
“I have heard stories about this which are exaggerated. I was only two or three yards behind them at the time and it’s true that they glared at one another and that some remarks were tossed around. It was all to do with the sending off of Boyle. But they calmed down and were the best of mates afterwards.”
Both clubs will dismiss that as a run-of-the-mill incident inspired by the pressures of football management, but the subsequent foul on Coleman was made more vivid by the angle of the cameras.
The FA are not keen to encourage the use of film in their courts, even though Liverpool’s Ian St John was once saved from stern punishment by a rerun of an incident at Fulham.
Boyle can claim that his punishment in no way fitted the crime, and that Coleman’s retaliation was violent enough to have earned dismissal with him.
It all depends what Chelsea are trying to prove. That referee Rex Spittle was wrong to send Boyle off. Or that Coleman should have gone with him?
Chelsea finished without two of the men they started with. The other was Peter Osgood, who was playing well when a pulled muscle ended the action for him.
His second half goal when Chelsea were down to ten men was enough to make the match safe and to help his team forget the misery of their exit from the Fairs Cup.
KEN JONES WRITING IN THE DAILY MIRROR 4TH NOVEMBER 1968