CITY 2 SWANSEA CITY 1
League Division
30th October 1982
Attendance 25,021
Scorers
City Tueart(15), Hartford(65)
Swansea Latchford(66)
Ref K Redfern
City Corrigan, Ranson, McDonald, Bond, Power, Caton, Tueart, Reeves, Cross, Hartford, Baker – Sub Reid(unused)
Swansea Davies, Stanley, Hadziabdic, Charles, Mahoney, Rajkovic, Walsh, R James, L James, Stevenson, Latchford – Sub Curtis(67)
DENNIS TUEART IS CONGRATULATED ON SCORING CITY’S FIRST GOAL
FROM THE PRESS BOX
PATRICK BARCLAY WRITING IN THE GUARDIAN 1ST NOVEMBER 1982
Though tactics and systems have a legitimate place in professional football, it is always refreshing when the course of a match is decided by the independent thinking of experienced players.
There is not enough of it about, Alan Ball said in one of his parting volleys, and he was right. A factor often over-looked in analyses of Liverpool’s success is that they train players to take their own decisions, Tom Saunders, a member of the Anfield backroom
staff, once asked rhetorically: “How often do you see our lads looking over the bench ? “
Thus it was good to see the 32-year-old Dennis Tueart and Asa Hartford helping to bring about Swansea City’s downfall on Saturday with a masterpiece of initiative.
It took place after obstruction by Charles on Reeves had given Manchester City a free-kick 10 yards out: the sort of situation which invariably produces excitement, but seldom a goal. Hartford, remembering an idea that had almost worked in a match some years ago, consulted Tueart, then flipped the ball into the air ; Tueart volleyed crisply, and before Swansea’s defensive wall could move it had whistled over their heads into the net.
Robbie James was one of the few players consistently willing to compete with a home team who used the flanks to particularly good effect. Indeed the retum to form of Power on the left, coupled with Ranson’s enterprise down the right, could have forced the outcome before half-time.
