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| Albiston playing for Manchester United in the 1983 FA Cup final against Brighton |
ARTHUR ALBISTON will have some nasty flashbacks when Manchester United make their historic first-ever League visit to Bournemouth today.
The former Scotland defender was in the United team beaten by the Cherries in one of the biggest FA Cup upsets of all-time nearly 31 years ago.
It was a third round tie in the classic traditions of the competition. Ron Atkinson’s Cup holders travelling to face a Third Division side – League One in modern-day language - managed by an up and coming manager called Harry Redknapp.
And defender Albiston says it was some shrewd pre-game psychology by Redknapp that put the skids under United in front of a 14,000 crowd at Dean Court, now called the Vitality Stadium.
It is part of Bournemouth’s folklore that Redknapp fired up his players in the dressing room minutes before kick-off by claiming United’s big-time Charlies were so confident they were going to stroll it they were still in the bar crowded round a TV set watching the horse racing.
Albiston recalled: “He was probably right that some of us were watching the racing but it didn’t mean we weren’t taking it seriously. You’ve got to remember that in those days you didn’t go out on the pitch half an hour before kick-off to do the strenuous warm-ups they do these days.
“There wasn’t much else to do before games once you were at the ground so if there was a TV on in the dressing room or one of the lounges you’d watch the racing before you got ready.
“It didn’t mean we were complacent but if Harry used it to fire up his players then fair play to him - it worked!”
At least left back Albiston can claim he wasn’t on the pitch when Bournemouth scored twice in a couple of breathless minutes midway through the second half with goals from Milton Graham and Ian Thompson.
He had been substituted at half-time because of a back injury so had to sit in the dug-out with Atkinson as United’s team of internationals inexplicably failed to stamp their class on the underdogs.
“It was a huge shock but there were no excuses,” he added. “We had a midfield of Bryan Robson, Ray Wilkins and Arnold Muhren. Up front we had Frank Stapleton and Norman Whiteside and Gary Bailey in goal.
"We couldn’t blame the pitch or the weather conditions – we just didn’t play on the day. I don’t remember us really creating anything and Bournemouth deserved their win.
“And I remember cringing in the dug-out in the final minutes when it was clear we were going out because all the photographers and TV cameras were starting to circle our dug-out ready to get a picture of Ron.
“It suddenly dawns on you it is going to be all over the back pages the next day and the main game on Match of the Day that night. It’s fair to say it was a very long coach journey home from the south coast to Manchester.
“The sting in the tail for us was that because we were out of the Cup, we had no game on the fourth round weekend so the club organised for us to fly out to Libya or somewhere like that to play an exhibition game!”
United clearly hadn’t learned their lesson because a few weeks earlier they had been knocked out of the League Cup by another Third Division side, Oxford United.
And yet two months later they beat a Barcelona team, including Diego Maradona, 3-0 in the Cup Winners Cup quarter-finals – still hailed as one of Old Trafford greatest’s European nights.
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| Ron Atkinson and his Manchester United team for the 1983/84 season |
It was a season that summed up Atkinson’s roller-coaster five and half years as United boss. And the foilowing year they lifted the Cup again - beating Bournemouth in the third round at Old Trafford.
But that hardly made amends for the shock on the south coast 12 months earlier.
Bournemouth defender Phil Brignull recalled Redknapp’s pre-match pep talk. “Harry played a bit of a trick. He came in about 20 minutes before the game and told us all the United players were still in the bar watching the racing and that’s how seriously they were taking it.
“It probably wasn’t true, he just wanted to get us wound up, but we always felt we had a proper chance and on the day we fully deserved to win. There was no fluke about it, it was a proper win.
“We played really well and they just didn’t settle. I don’t remember them having an effort on goal until we were 2-0 up. It was an odd game.”
With the Cherries on a high after their win at Chelsea and injury-hit United stumbling, what price a repeat today?
Saturday, January 7 1984
FA Cup third round
Bournemouth 2, Manchester United 0
Bournemouth: Leigh, La Ronde, Sulley, Savage, Brown, Brignull, Train, Nightingale, Morgan, M Graham, Thompson. Unused sub: Carter.
Goals: M Graham 60, Thompson 62.
Manchester United: Bailey, Moses, Albiston (Macari), Wilkins, Hogg, Duxbury, Robson, Muhren, Stapleton, Whiteside, A Graham.
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