It was a slalom run and match-winning finish at Wembley Stadium that has woven its way into English football folklore.
Ricky Villa’s second goal for Tottenham Hotspur against Manchester City in the 1981 FA Cup final replay is safely secured as one of the famous competition’s most iconic moments.
The two teams meet again in a final for first time in 40 years on Sunday – the League Cup this time – at the same stadium, albeit one rebuilt at a cost of nearly £800 million and with just 8,000 fans present due to Covid-19 restrictions. Nearly 200,000 supporters watched the two games in 1981.
City were still in the running for a historic quadruple until last week's FA Cup semi-final defeat to Chelsea and are closing in on their fifth title in 10 seasons.
Spurs sit two points and two places outside a top-four spot and should finish in the top six for a 12th consecutive season.
It was a very different story back in 1981. The Premier League and all its game-changing television money was still more than a decade away, never mind any crazy plan for a European Super League.
Foreign players were something of a novelty in the English top-flight but Spurs had Villa and Ossie Ardiles in their starting line-up, both part of Argentina’s World Cup winning squad of 1978. City’s team was 100 per cent British – eight born in England and three Scots.
Spurs had just finished 10th in what was then the plain old First Division (made up of 22 clubs). Goals had not been a problem for Keith Burkinshaw’s side, with only three clubs scoring more than their final league total of 70.
But hopes of a title challenge had disappeared due to a porous defence that leaked goals. Relegated Crystal Palace and Norwich City were the only two teams that conceded more than Spurs’ 68.
There was no Latin American flair in John Bond’s City team that had finished two places below Spurs in the table. Local talent was very much at its core.
Joe Corrigan, Nicky Reid, Paul Power, Dave Bennett were all from the Manchester area, while Ray Ranson was from neighbouring Merseyside. Carndenden (Tommy Hutchison) and Aberdeen (Bobby MacDonald) in Scotland was as continental as it got in the City starting XI.
The first game was a tight affair made memorable by the fact that City midfielder Hutchison, the oldest player on the field at 33, managed to score at both ends of the pitch.
He put City into the lead after half an hour with a brilliant flying header from a Ranson cross but then deflected a Glenn Hoddle free-kick into his own net with 11 minutes to go.
Villa was substituted after 68 minutes. "I don't think we played very well, and I certainly wasn't great," he told the Daily Mail in 2018. "I try to explain this to English people or my teammates, that there was no 'in between' with me.
“I either played well or I was poor. In that game I was poor, but it was almost as if it was a normal situation for me. I wasn't very consistent.”
The replay took place five days later on a Thursday evening and Villa and Ardiles were at the heart of the opening goal after eight minutes.
Ardiles flicked the ball over one City player, danced round two more desperate challenges before his shot was deflected into the path of Archibald. The Scottish striker's shot was saved by Corrigan and landed at the feet of a grateful Villa who fired home from close range.
Just three minutes later, City were level. Teed-up by Hutchison outside the penalty area, 19-year-old Steve MacKenzie cracked home a wonderful first-time volley that flew into the top corner past the despairing dive of Milija Aleksic. It was a magnificent goal that would be overshadowed by the dramatic events still to come.
Just before half-time, Reeves put his team back in front from the spot after Paul Miller and Chris Hughton had combined to bring down winger Bennett.
With 20 minutes to go, Spurs were level again. Hoddle played a delicate ball over the defence, Archibald controlled and Crooks finished from inside the box.
Six minutes later and the moment that defined the match. The move began courtesy of a perfectly timed challenge on Reeves by Spurs defender Graham Roberts who then laid the ball off to Tony Galvin.
The Spurs winger was off, galloping down the left wing before passing the ball inside to Villa who ghosted into the City box under minimal pressure and finished before the first serious challenge arrived. “When I made my run towards goal, I didn't think I would manage to score, but then everything opened up,” Villa said.
City captain Power told the Independent in 2017: "Ray Ranson should have stopped him coming into the box in the first place by tackling him out by the line, and then he has got past Tommy Caton who looked a little bit tired. It was just a combination of a little bit too much, too soon for our young players.
“It was a shame because I thought Steve MacKenzie’s goal in that game was better than Ricky Villa’s.”
This may be true, but the final word still belongs to the match-winner. “The club had spent money on two world champions and the fans all hoped to win things," Villa said. "I loved it, because I was able to give them something back, not in terms of money, but in hopes and dreams.”
