1956 FA Cup Final

The 1956 FA Cup Final was the final match of the 1955–56 staging of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup. The showpiece event was contested between Manchester City and Birmingham City at Wembley Stadium in London on Saturday 5 May 1956. Two-time winners Manchester City were appearing in their sixth final, whereas Birmingham City were seeking to win the competition for the first time, having lost their only previous final in 1931.

Each club needed to win five matches to reach the final. Manchester City's victories were close affairs, each settled by the odd goal, and they needed a replay to defeat fifth-round opponents Liverpool. Birmingham City made more comfortable progress: they scored eighteen goals while conceding only two, and won each match at the first attempt despite being drawn to play on their opponents' ground in every round. They became the first team to reach an FA Cup final without playing at home.

Birmingham City entered the match as favourites, in a contest billed as a contrast of styles. Watched by a crowd of 100,000 and a television audience of five million, Manchester City took an early lead through Joe Hayes, but Noel Kinsey equalised midway through the first half. Second half goals from Jack Dyson and Bobby Johnstone gave Manchester City a 3–1 victory. The match is best remembered for the heroics of Manchester City goalkeeper, Bert Trautmann, who continued playing despite breaking a bone in his neck in a collision with Birmingham City's Peter Murphy. Due to his heroics, the game is often referred to as "the Trautmann final".

Route to the final

Manchester City

As both Birmingham City and Manchester City were First Division clubs, they entered the competition in the third round. Manchester City's cup run started with a home tie against Blackpool. The visitors took the lead after only 10 seconds (their fastest goal ever), but midway through the match, fog enveloped Maine Road. The match was abandoned during the second half, immediately after City had scored an equalising goal, and replayed the following Wednesday; City won 2–1. In the fourth round Manchester City faced Southend United at Roots Hall. The Essex club's ground had only opened five months previously, and was suffering from drainage problems. Torrential rainfall meant that in the week before the match a trench was dug across the pitch, and sand added. Though Southend were a Third Division team, their familiarity with the uneven pitch meant the match was closely contested. Southend pressured the Manchester City goal, requiring Bert Trautmann to make several saves, but Joe Hayes scored the only goal of the game on a City counter-attack to earn a fifth-round tie against Liverpool.

In the fifth-round match, the teams saw out a 0–0 draw at Maine Road, and the match was replayed at Anfield. Goals from Jack Dyson and Bobby Johnstone gave Manchester City a 2–1 lead, but the game finished in controversial circumstances when the referee blew his whistle for full time as Liverpool's Billy Liddell was bearing down on goal. Liddell put the ball in the net, but unbeknown to him the goal did not count as the match was already over. In the quarter final Manchester City again played opposition from Liverpool, facing Everton at Maine Road. Trailing 1–0 at half-time after a Jimmy Harris goal, City overcame the deficit in the second half with goals from Hayes and Johnstone. Further controversy followed in the semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur, when in the final minutes of the match, with the score at 1–0 to Manchester City, Tottenham were denied a penalty after goalkeeper Trautmann grabbed forward George Robb's leg. No further goalscoring opportunities occurred, and City hung on for the victory.

Birmingham City

Manager Arthur Turner called on his team to match their Third Division opponents Torquay United for fighting spirit and to produce a "90-minute performance". The players complied; leading 4–0 at half-time, they finished as comfortable 7–1 winners. In the fourth round, Leyton Orient, who had beaten Birmingham at the same stage four years earlier, posed more of a potential problem. In reality the win was equally comfortable: Eddy Brown added two goals to his hat-trick at Torquay. A tight local derby game followed on a snow-covered frozen pitch at The Hawthorns. In the first half, goalkeeper Gil Merrick and his defence did well to keep West Bromwich Albion out; Trevor Smith had to clear a Ronnie Allen header from under the crossbar. In the second half, Birmingham wasted several chances before a one-two with Brown allowed Peter Murphy to score from the edge of the penalty area.

In the sixth round, Birmingham faced Arsenal on a muddy pitch. In order to relieve the tension on the way to important matches, manager Turner used to encourage the players to sing. Scotsman Alex Govan's contribution, Harry Lauder's rousing "Keep right on to the end of the road", was adopted by his teammates. As the team coach approached Highbury with the windows wound down, the fans joined in, continuing their rendition during the game. After first-half goals from Gordon Astall and Murphy, Birmingham went 3–0 up through Brown with twenty minutes left. Two minutes later, Arsenal scored from , Birmingham were unsettled, and Merrick needed to make a fine save from Vic Groves to prevent a second Arsenal goal. Turner felt the motivation from such a powerful song played a significant part in the day's victory.

Semi-final opponents Sunderland found Birmingham without "hard-man" left-half Roy Warhurst, who had injured a thigh against Arsenal, but in Jack Badham they had an effective replacement. The club's official history describes this as "probably the finest team performance against top class opposition ever produced" by a Birmingham team. They attacked from the kick-off and nullified Sunderland's pressure and the threat of Len Shackleton. Noel Kinsey scored early and the second goal came from a passing move down the left side finished by Astall. As Sunderland threw everyone forward, which left them open at the back, Brown picked up a long through ball and lobbed the goalkeeper. Astall said afterwards that he was surprised they had not scored five, and Brown wrote in his newspaper column:

Now Sunderland found out how hard it is to score against this terrific defence of ours. Not for nothing have we scored 18 goals against two (both of them freaks) conceded in five ties all away from home. What can I say to do justice to that brilliant goalkeeper Gil Merrick, to wonderful young Trevor Smith and to the matchless Jeff Hall and Ken Green? Once again they mixed the old cement and constructed that brilliant wall of a defence. Sunderland would have needed to call in a firm of demolition contractors to destroy it.

Birmingham City thus reached the final without playing a single tie at home, a feat which had never previously been accomplished.

Build-up

The 1956 final was the second time that Birmingham had reached the showpiece match, having lost 2–1 to West Bromwich Albion in 1931. Manchester City were appearing in the final for the sixth time, and for the second consecutive year. They had won the cup twice previously (in 1904 and 1934), and had been beaten in the final three times (in 1926, 1933 and 1955). Though Birmingham had less pedigree in the competition, the press viewed them as favourites. ''The Daily Telegraph'' contrasted Birmingham's "dazzling Cup run" with the manner in which Manchester City "scraped through", describing the Midlanders as "firm favourites". Interviews with players were typically bullish in tone. Manchester City's Bobby Johnstone opined that "Even an unbiased fan must regard Manchester City with favour", whereas Birmingham's Len Boyd gauged opinion quite differently: "They say Birmingham City are the hottest Cup favourites since Wolves crashed to Portsmouth in 1939".

During the 1950s the FA Cup final was the only football match to be televised nationally, resulting in heightened media attention for the players and clubs involved. The Players' Union successfully requested an additional £5 per man for appearing in a televised match, the first time such appearance money had been paid. Birmingham's players signed an exclusive contract with the BBC
...