January
It was then time for the Third Round of the FA Cup, and as usual City had been drawn away from home, and even more disappointingly, following the win at Mansfield to another Third Division side in mid-table Aldershot. City fielded a side unchanged from the second half against Barnsley when Dick Krzywicki had switched to the left allowing John Fleming to play in his usual wide right position with Dave Smith and Dennis Booth in midfield.
Aldershot’s previous home game had seen an attendance of just under 14,000 against table-topping Crystal Palace compared to their usual 5,000 or so. With around 4,000 of that figure said to be Palace supporters it had Shots manager Tom McAnearney in his programme notes pleading for the extra 5,000 home fans to turn up more often. The 6,825 who witnessed the visit of City, perhaps lured by the magic of the FA Cup, did turn out to be Aldershot’s third highest attendance of the season. In a rather scrappy game City took the lead just before half time with a goal, which as with the last one they had scored, was the result of a long throw-in allowing John Ward to head his 18th of the season. Aldershot goalkeeper Tony Godfrey had to be substituted at the interval so City were faced with a stand-in keeper for the rest of the game. However, the home side quickly equalised through an error by Peter Grotier when he fumbled a header by Aldershot’s 27-year-old winger Neil Warnock. But twenty minutes from the end a hotly-disputed penalty was put away by Sam Ellis to send the Imps into the Fourth Round for the first time since 1961 when as a Second Division club they had only entered the competition in the Third Round. It was in fact the first time they had successfully negotiated three rounds of the FA Cup since 1912.
Flashback again to what Graham Taylor had said in May: “We want more points, we want to score more goals, we want to reach the Fourth Round of the FA Cup and the second round of the League Cup.”
Second box ticked, two more to go.
As Northampton had lost in a top of the table clash at Reading City remained a point ahead of them and now with two games in hand. They also still held a ten-point lead over Bournemouth in fifth place as the top four had opened up a five-point gap over the rest. The picture remained the same after the next round of matches with Northampton back on form with a 5-0 thumping of Barnsley. The visit of Hartlepool to Sincil Bank saw a falling back of the attendance to around seven and a half thousand and we saw an unchanged side finally break through some stubborn resistance by the north eastern side midway through the second half with a goal from Dave Smith. This was soon added to by Sam Ellis’s third penalty in successive games, and a last-minute strike by John Ward sealed what ended up as a routine 3-0 win and an eleventh victory in a row.
With the absence of Graham and Harding, who it emerged had broken a bone in his foot, Graham Taylor had been looking to strengthen the squad but moves for Scunthorpe midfielder Angus Davidson, and not for the first time, former Imp Phil Hubbard from Grimsby had fallen through for financial reasons.
The run of wins came to an end the following week at Exeter with a goalless draw in a game in which City were not at their best but never looked like losing. As Northampton had also been held to a draw away from home the previous night at Swansea the Imps remained a point ahead of them at the top. With Tranmere beaten at Barnsley there was now a six-point gap between them and the top three, while Bournemouth’s defeat at Newport stretched the gap between City and fifth place by another point to eleven.
It was now time for the Fourth Round of the FA Cup, and for the eighth time in a row – in fact for every time since Graham Taylor had been appointed manager – they had been drawn away from home. This meant a visit to West Bromwich Albion, currently in their third season in the Second Division following a 24-year spell in the top flight. Managed by former Leeds United star Johnny Giles they were currently placed fifth, and in fact were to win promotion back to the First Division at the end of the current season.
With Taylor saying of the match “We’ve nothing to lose and everything to gain” it was reported that 120 coachloads were expected to travel to the Hawthorns, and with a total of 7,000 Imps supporters there the attendance of 26,388 was Albion’s highest of the season so far. City, unchanged once again, were up against a West Bromwich side boasting six past, current and future international players including their manager, and fell behind after just two minutes. However, they worked their way back into the match and a Sam Ellis penalty and a close-range strike from John Fleming put them ahead by half time and those of us behind the goal they were attacking into dreamland.
But with Dave Smith having run the game from midfield in the first half it was clear that Johnny Giles had marked him down to be kicked out of the game and that was what Irish international Mick Martin did ten minutes after the break. To add insult to injury, Martin, not even booked for the tackle on Smith almost immediately scored the equaliser. With Smith having to be replaced by Phil Neale City could then do no more than try and hang on, but with seventeen minutes to go Albion’s left back, a 19-year-old former apprentice named Bryan Robson broke forward, and with everyone – including probably Peter Grotier – expecting a pass outside he crashed a 30-yard shot into the net.
The defeat put an end to an unbeaten run of sixteen matches stretching back to mid-October, nine of them having been away from home. Northampton beat Darlington to go back to the top of the table a point ahead of City who now had three games in hand on them. Bournemouth won at Stockport to cut the gap to fifth place to nine points.
Although their overall long unbeaten run had come to an end City continued a run of home games without defeat that stretched back to the previous March with their third 3-0 score-line in the last five matches to go back to the top of the table. Dave Smith showed no ill effects of his experiences at West Bromwich to turn in a man-of-the-match performance against mid-table Cambridge United. After a goalless first half a change of tactics saw Dick Krzywicki moved up front alongside John Ward with Percy Freeman behind them, a formation that had paid off with a 4-2 win at Cambridge earlier in the season. It soon paid off again, with Ward’s 20th goal of the season and Freeman’s 15th plus one from Fleming.
Freeman’s goal was featured in the edition of Rothman’s Football Yearbook that appeared that summer as one of their ‘Eight Great Goals of 1975-76’:
Highlights of the match were shown on television, and the goals can still be enjoyed today: