Blast From The Past: On This Day 1963: JH’s Sky Blues Humble Sunderland in F.A.Cup

On this day (26th March) in 1963 Jimmy Hill’s Third Division Sky Blues did a bit of giant-killing in the 5th round of the FA Cup 5th Round humbling mighty Sunderland.

From Round One the Sky Blues had despatched Bournemouth and Millwall (after a replay) in November. Their Round 3 victory at Sincil Bank, Lincoln had to wait until March due to the exceptionally bad winter and was postponed a record number of times before CCFC won 5-1.

Portsmouth took three games (including a second replay at White Hart Lane. Tottenham) to dispose of in Round Four earlier in the month and both teams already knew that the winner of the fifth round tie would get a plum home tie against the mighty Manchester United in the 6th Round!

There were amazing scenes at Highfield Road with a massive crowd packed in, gates broken down, walls collapsing, fans perched on floodlights (and even a few on top of one stand roof). The official gate was given as 40,487 but thousands must have got in for free and youngsters were passed down to the touchline to watch it from there – something that would not be countenanced in the modern game!

The game seemed to be proceeding according to the respective team’s pedigrees with the Sky Blues 1-0 down with eight minutes to go, but amidst increasingly emotional final scenes a long range strike from left half Dietmar Bruck (now a CCFPA committee member) and a bullet header from captain George Curtis saw City through to that game against the Red Devils five days later when another 44000 packed into Highfield Road to see the Sky Blues eventually go down to Bobby Charlton and his colleagues 3-1 (some remember quite unluckily).

 

Diet in the Sky Blue

George in the Sky Blue

The Sky Blues Giant Killers that day comprised:-

Bob Wesson, John Sillett, Mick Kearns, Brian Hill*, George Curtis (c), Dietmar Bruck, Willie Humphries, Hugh Barr, Terry Bly*, Jimmy Whitehouse and Ronnie Rees.

 

We are proud to say that, apart from the late Terry Bly every single member of that team went on to join Coventry City Former Players Association. Brian, sadly also passed away a while back. George and John, of course, went on to manage the Sky Blues to that magical Wembley victory in the F.A.Cup over 20 years later in 1987! 

Thanks to CCFPA’s Dean Nelson and Mike Young for supplying the photos