Manchester Derby FA Cup finals, it turns out, are rather like Manchester buses. You wait more than a century for one to come along, then two turn up at the same time. Considering the ascent of City in recent years, it’s probably not that surprising that this run should have ended at this time, but what is surprising is just how few true local derbies have ever been played as FA Cup finals.
By Ian King
In football’s early days, when there were fewer professional clubs than there are now, there were more of them. West Bromwich Albion and Aston Villa played each other in 1887, 1892 and 1895 (with Villa winning two and Albion the other one), while Nottingham Forest beat Derby County 3-1 in 1898.
At that time there were 32 teams in the Football League. Within thirty years there were 88, almost three times as many, and the likelihood of two local rivals meeting each other in the Cup Final started to diminish. From time to time something would come close – Manchester City and Bolton Wanderers played each other in 1904 and 1926, while Blackpool beat Bolton Wanderers in 1953.
But none of these quite scratch the itch of being derby matches. West Brom’s fiercest rivals are Wolves, for example, but they’ve never played each other at Wembley. Inversely, Manchester United and Liverpool have played each other at Wembley in both FA and EFL Cup finals, as have Spurs and Chelsea, but while these are obviously huge grudge matches, they’re not quite local derbies.
Liverpool and Everton met in the FA Cup finals twice in the 1980s, but under very different circumstances to each other. In 1986 celebration was in the air, with Liverpool having just won the league title and Everton having done so a year earlier. But when they met again in 1989 the occasion was considerably more sombre, a city united in grief following the tragic events which had unfolded at Hillsborough just a few weeks earlier.
Manchester United and Manchester City not having played each other in an FA Cup final, then, isn’t really a rarity or even that much of a statistical quirk. Spurs and Arsenal have played each other twice at Wembley in FA Cup semi-finals, but have never met in an FA Cup final. The two Sheffield clubs did the same in 1993. Sunderland and Newcastle have never met in an FA Cup final, and neither have Aston Villa and Birmingham City or Portsmouth and Southampton.
When the two clubs first met in the FA Cup in October 1890 United were still called Newton Heath and City were still called Ardwick. Newton Heath won that match 5-1, but they didn’t beat them again in this competition until a 3-0 win in the Fourth Road in January 1970. This time it would be City’s time to wait for decades. United won the next three in a row, in 1987, 1996 and 2004, all at Old Trafford, and it wouldn’t be until the 2011 semi-final, the clubs’ first ever meeting at Wembley in any form, before beating them again. In January 2013, United beat City at The Etihad, and that takes us up to last year and City’s 2-1 win at Wembley.
The omens for Manchester United appear mixed. They’ve failed to win a cup tie overall against City since 2016, but they have remained a more than occasional thorn in City’s side over the years of oil money dominance, having recorded eight wins against them since the first Premier League title of the modern era at City in 2012. It’s not the record that Manchester United would have wanted from this time period. This remains a club which expects dominance. But it’s better than most other clubs.
This is an FA Cup final that is loaded with symbolism. Manchester United have just completed their league season in 8th place in the Premier League, their lowest final league position since 1990, and only winning this match will get them into Europe for next season. That’s a big deal, when you consider that the last time they failed to qualify for Europe (other than the post-Heysel ban years) was 1981.
The match also matters to Manchester City who, for all the talk of their imperiousness, were beaten in the Champions League by Real Madrid and in the EFL Cup by Newcastle. Sure enough, they won the European Super Cup last summer and the World Club Cup just before Christmas, so it’s hardly as though they’ll be sweeping many cobwebs from their trophy cabinet soon, but they played precisely three games for those two trophies.
Furthermore, this is an opportunity for City to do The Double. United have done it three times, in 1994, 1996 and 1999. Should City win this one, they’ll have done it three times too, on top of last year and 2019. United’s historical successes mean that it could still only be years before City overhauled United’s trophy hauls completely, but bit by bit those records are being chipped away.
Manchester City have been better than Manchester United this season, but it may just be that the local derby nature of this final will play into United’s hands. Derby matches always offer the possibility of an upset and it is really a reflection of where both clubs are today that United beating City in an FA Cup final would be considered something of one.
(Images from IMAGO)
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