The 1970 European Cup Winners' Cup Final was a football match between Manchester City of

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Górnik Zabrze Górnik Zabrze Spółka Akcyjna, commonly referred to as Górnik Zabrze S.A. or simply Górnik Zabrze (), is a Polish football club from Zabrze. Górnik is one of the most successful Polish football clubs in history, winning the second-most Po ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

on 29 April 1970 at

Praterstadion Ernst-Happel-Stadion (), known as Praterstadion until 1992, sometimes also called Wiener-Stadion, is a football stadium in Leopoldstadt, the 2nd district of Austria's capital Vienna. With 50,865 seats, it is the largest stadium in Austria. It w ...

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

. It was the final match of the 1969–70 European Cup Winners' Cup and the tenth

European Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

final. Both sides made their first appearance in a European final. Manchester City won the match 2–1 thanks to goals by

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fur ...

and Francis Lee.

Route to the final

Manchester City and Górnik Zabrze qualified for the Cup Winners' Cup by winning their respective national cups in the 1968–69 season. Manchester City defeated

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the National ...

in the 1969 FA Cup Final, while Górnik defeated Legia Warsaw 2–0 in the 1969 Polish Cup Final.

Manchester City

It was only second Manchester City's European campaign. Their maiden entry into European competition, an appearance in the

1968–69 European Cup The 1968–69 season of the European Cup football club tournament was won by Milan, who beat Ajax 4–1 in the final, giving Milan its first European Cup title since 1963, and its second overall. A number of Eastern Bloc clubs withdrew from th ...

, saw the club exit in the opening round. Manchester City played the away leg first in every round. Their first tie was against Spanish club Athletic Bilbao, who were themselves managed by an Englishman,

Ronnie Allen Ronald Allen (15 January 1929 – 9 June 2001) was an English international football player and manager. He was a professional footballer for nineteen years, between 1946 and 1964, making 638 appearances in the Football League, and scoring 2 ...

.Gardner, ''The Manchester City Football Book No. 2'', p. 14. In the first leg, City recovered from a two-goal deficit to secure a 3–3 draw. The home leg was a routine 3–0 win. Post-match reports alleged that a scuffle had taken place at half-time between

Mike Doyle Michael, Mick or Mike Doyle may refer to: Politics * Michael Doyle (Irish politician), Irish Farmers' Party politician from Wexford, TD from 1922 to 1927 *Michael Doyle, alleged member of the Molly Maguires *Mike Doyle (American politician) (born ...

and José Ramón Betzuen, The referee spoke to both managers, but did not take any further action.

Górnik Zabrze

The 1969–70 cup run was Górnik's seventh European campaign. The club had participated in the European Cup six times in the previous decade. It was their first appearance in the Cup Winners' Cup. The club had qualified for the competition on one previous occasion, but withdrew without playing a match.

Match

Summary

Manchester City were without winger

Mike Summerbee Michael George Summerbee (born 15 December 1942) is an English former footballer, who played in the successful Manchester City side of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Club career Summerbee was born in Preston, Lancashire, and raised in Ch ...

with a leg injury that had troubled him since the League Cup Final the previous month.

George Heslop George Heslop (1 July 1940 – 17 September 2006) was an English footballer. Heslop was a centre half who played for Newcastle United and Everton, before a successful spell at Manchester City between 1965 and 1971, where he made a total of 19 ...

came into the team as a result, though Summerbee was fit enough to be named as a substitute. Heslop was given the task of man-marking

Włodzimierz Lubański Włodzimierz 'Włodek' Leonard Lubański (Polish pronunciation: ; born 28 February 1947 in Gliwice-Sośnica) is a former Polish football striker, the second all-time highest goal scorer for the Polish national team. For his national team, ...

, who ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' identified as "an outstanding individual... ...whom Malcolm Allison considers to be in the same class as

Eusébio Eusébio da Silva Ferreira (; 25 January 1942 – 5 January 2014), nicknamed the "Black Panther", the "Black Pearl" or "O Rei" ("The King"), was a Portuguese footballer who played as a striker. He is considered one of the greatest players of ...

." Manchester City started strongly, particularly Francis Lee; ''The Guardian'' correspondent wrote "Lee, indefatigable and nigh irresistible continually embarrassed the Górnik defence in the early stages". Lee had the first chance of the match, a close range shot which was saved by Kostka. Manchester City took the lead in the 12th minute. Lee cut in from the left wing, escaping a tackle from Alfred Olek, and struck a fierce shot.Gardner, ''The Manchester City Football Book No. 2, p. 20. Goalkeeper

Hubert Kostka Hubert Jerzy Kostka (born 27 May 1940 in Ratibor) is a retired Polish football goalkeeper. Kostka participated in the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, where Poland won the men's football tournament. Kostka is not only a successful player, he al ...

parried the ball, only for it to land at the feet of

for a simple finish.Ward, ''The Manchester City Story'', p. 66. Shortly after City defender

sustained an ankle injury after colliding with Stefan Florenski. Manchester City played on with ten men for a period as Doyle received treatment from trainer Dave Ewing, but the defender was unable to continue. Substitute

Ian Bowyer Ian or Iain is a name of Scottish Gaelic origin, derived from the Hebrew given name ( Yohanan, ') and corresponding to the English name John. The spelling Ian is an Anglicization of the Scottish Gaelic forename ''Iain''. It is a popular name in ...

replaced him. The change prompted an alteration in formation, in which Colin Bell switched to a deeper position. Shortly before half-time, Young won the ball after loose play from Florenski, which put him clear on goal. As Young moved into the penalty area Kostka rushed out of his goal and upended him, leaving the referee no option but to give a penalty. Lee struck the spot-kick with power into the centre of the goal. Kostka's legs made contact with the ball, but the force of the shot carried it into the net to make it 2–0. Górnik got a goal back midway through the second half, but there were no more goals and the match finished 2–1.

Details

Post-match

Winning manager Joe Mercer said "the heavy rain in the second half ruined the game" and that he was "quite happy with the performance of our team, although the technical level was rather low in the second half". Górnik manager Michał Matyas blamed his side's poor start, saying the "first goal came too early for us and we never recovered from this shock."

References

Bibliography

* * * * *

External links

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup results at Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
{{Górnik Zabrze matches 3 Cup Winners' Cup Final 1970 Cup Winners' Cup Final 1970

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (''Extreme''). Between 10,000 and ...

UEFA Cup Winners' Cup Finals

Euro The euro ( symbol: €; code: EUR) is the official currency of 19 out of the member states of the European Union (EU). This group of states is known as the eurozone or, officially, the euro area, and includes about 340 million citizens . ...

April 1970 sports events in Europe 1970s in Vienna Sports competitions in Vienna