RESTON NORTH End had rustled

up tickets for their star defender

Joe Marston and his wife Edith

to see the 1953 FA Cup final at

Wembley.

The Marstons were on their way back to Sydney

for an end-of-season break – Preston supporters had

raised the money to send them back home rather

than see the homesick Australians never return – and

Wembley was a suitable pit stop.

Blackpool played Bolton Wanderers that year and

for the Marstons it was to be a prophetic day out.

Their seats were opposite the Royal Box, just near the

entrance to the players’ tunnel.

“We were sitting there listening as the crowd sang

the hymn Abide With Me before kick-off,” recalls Edith,

whom Joe lovingly refers to as his “greatest trophy” as

the pair pose for photos in their living room.

As the crowd burst into a frenzy of colour and

song, and the referee blew his whistle to get the game

underway, Edith took in a sharp breath.

“Wouldn’t it be great to play here next year?”

she said to Joe.

As a matter of fact, it would be. Sort of.

The Marstons had arrived in England in 1950,

direct from Leichhardt, then a working class suburb

of Sydney. Preston North End, one of the biggest

teams in England at that time, had signed Marston, an

Australian international, sight unseen.

Nicknamed “Digger” by teammate Tommy

Docherty, a Scot who would go on to manage

Manchester United and Sydney Olympic, it took

Marston 12 months to crack PNE’s first team but once

he did, he started 196 consecutive matches for which

he was paid £12 a week. In 1954, he became the first

Australian to play in an FA Cup final.

Preston were favourites to beat West Bromwich

Albion that year. West Brom had finished the season

second to Wolverhampton but been called ‘the team

of the season’. Ravaged by injuries their season

had imploded.

Preston players travelled to London on the Tuesday

before the final. An official party of about 80 people –

directors, players’ wives, and supporters – followed

them on Friday. Everyone stayed at the famous Savoy

Hotel in the West End, where Edith met another

Australian, Errol Flynn, in a lift.

Inside Preston’s dressing room before the game,

the players were nervous, talking quietly to each

other. Even Docherty, the comedian of the team, was

not his normal garrulous self. Billy Forbes was pacing

up and down, going into the shower room, sitting on

the toilet and having a cigarette.

At 2.45pm the bell sounded to call the two teams

into the tunnel. Up they walked, side by side, along the

long incline towards the streaming light and blast of

noise. The crowd was so loud it was impossible to tell

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119 FOOTBALL+

Joe Marston was

the first Australian to

play in an FA Cup final.

He tells Matthew Hall

about that special

day in 1954

Pioneerspirit

“At 2.45pm the bell sounded to call the two teams into the tunnel. Up they walked, side by side, along the long incline towards the streaming light and blast of noise”

Marston with Preston teammate Tommy Thompson

Australian legend

120 121 FOOTBALL+FOOTBALL+

which team each section of the crowd was supporting

– it was simply a wall of sound and a blur of colour.

The teams lined up to be introduced to Queen

Elizabeth – the Queen Mother. First West Brom, then

Preston. The players had been earlier advised of the

protocol: “Just nod and say, ‘Yes, Ma’am’.”

“Then we were ready for business,” recalls Joe.

Preston struggled on the sun-dried hard surface,

greased by light rain. Albion scored first but Preston

equalised almost immediately. As the second half

ebbed away, Preston finally got their short passing

game together. In the 52nd minute they went ahead but

just couldn’t kill off West Brom. West Brom eventually

levelled and it seemed the game would stalemate, both

sides happy for a replay in a few days’ time.

“We thought that if we got a draw at Wembley then

we’d kill them in the replay,” recalls Joe. “We would

definitely have beaten them.”

Marston can still conjure up the final minute of

the match as clear as day: Joe Walton, Preston’s

left-back, was caught way down the line in West

Brom’s half. A West Brom defender struck a long ball

back towards Preston’s goal. Joe and right-back Bill

Cunningham were supposed to pick up the two West

Brom strikers in the centre of the park. Joe sprinted

forward to meet the long ball. From nowhere, the

West Brom striker Frank Griffin popped up in front of

him to flick it on. He beat Joe to the ball by a sliver.

But it was enough. Destiny is decided by millimetres.

“I was that far from him,” recalls Joe, holding his

thumb and index finger tightly together. “I was about

that far from him . . .”

The Preston goalkeeper came off his line. Joe knew

what would happen next. He put his head in his hands.

“That was it.”

Afterwards, in the dressing-room, Willy Forbes

slowly pulled his boots off. He collected some mud

from the floor, put it into a matchbox, and turned to

Marston: “I’ll never be back here, Joe,” he said. “I’m

keeping this.”

As the West Bromwich Albion players made their

lap of honour around Wembley, Joe sat back on the

wooden bench inside the silent Preston dressing room.

He thought back to the barefoot five-a-side games

he played with his mates by the Cooks River in

Sydney; how he used to run along the railway line

through the now-fashionable inner-western suburbs

to get to training; back to the days when he forged

his way up through Under 14 and Under 15 teams

to eventually represent New South Wales; and

when, after school, he and his mates would kick

around a football until it got dark and the cops

would chase them out of the park.

There was meant to be a celebration that night

but it was more of a wake. The popular singers

of the day, Petula Clark and Norman Wisdom,

performed for the team at a dinner at the Savoy. For

the players, the worst was yet to come – returning

to Preston on the Sunday. Despite the loss, a

crowd – ten-deep – lined the streets from the

railway station right up through the centre of town.

“We just felt so guilty, so bad for the fans,” recalls

Joe. “We let them down.”

Joe and Edith stayed for one more year at

Preston. Tom Finney, devastated by the FA Cup loss,

relinquished the club captaincy. The players voted on

a replacement. Joe was chosen to lead the team. On

his final appearance at the Deepdale ground, against

Aston Villa, a band was hired to play.

As the teams ran out onto the pitch it struck up

a jaunty version of Waltzing Matilda and For He’s A

Jolly Good Fellow. The crowd sang along, loudly. As a

going-away present, the Preston North End directors

gave Joe a clock.

“I was talking to Edith about Wembley the other

day,” says Marston, clearing the plates from the

kitchen table of their home near Umina Beach on the

New South Wales Central Coast. “I said that even

though we lost, there are only about 3000 footballers

who can ever say that they played in an FA Cup Final.”

Joe and Edith arrived back in Australia midway

through 1955. Joe was 29. They had nowhere to live

so they stayed with friends. Within a week, Joe had

got back his old job at a brush factory and was soon

back playing for Leichhardt-Annandale at Lambert

Park, where he and Edith had met many years earlier.

Some old mates threw them a welcome-home

dinner. Other than that there was little fanfare.

Marston received this medal in 2009 for his services to

the game in Australia

AS A boy, Jesper Olsen tuned in along with

the rest of the world to watch the FA Cup on

television in a faraway land. Unlike millions of

others however, one day in 1985, he found himself

in the middle of the story. Having made his name

with Ajax as a speedy winger, Olsen had been

signed by Manchester United manager Ron

Atkinson at the beginning of the 1984-85 season.

May 18, 1985 was to be the biggest day of his

career to date – an FA Cup final against league

champions Everton.

“It was a huge occasion, I had grown up

with English football in Scandinavia,” he tells

Football+. “It was something you just didn’t miss

every year. Everton were a fantastic side. They

had already won the league, and they’d also won

the European Cup Winners’ Cup. So they were

after the treble, but had a lot of games to finish off

the season with.”

United were, according to Olsen, “a fantastic

cup side,” yet they went in to the final as

underdogs after a 5-0 drubbing at the hands of

their opponents earlier in the season.

“Everton was a good side but a horrible side to

play against,” he continues. “They were so well

organised and played offside – you never got

going against them.”

Consequently, the final was stifled for any kind

of flowing football until the 78th minute, when a

loose United pass in midfield saw Everton star

Peter Reid burst into the opposition half with

only Kevin Moran and the goalkeeper in front of

him. Moran lunged in two-footed and collected

Reid’s legs, writing himself into history as the

first, and to date, only player to be sent off in

an FA Cup final. Down to 10 men and facing the

wrath of the all-conquering Merseysiders, United

were galvanised and took the game to extra-time.

“Everton – having played so many games before

the final – they kind of ran out of puff,” says

Olsen.

And with 10 minutes remaining, it was Norman

Whiteside who broke the deadlock in stunning

fashion, coming in from the right wing and curling

his left-foot shot perfectly into the bottom corner

of the goal to secure a 1-0 success.

“It was not a pretty game, and not one of

the greatest finals, but when you end up on the

winning team that doesn’t really matter,” says

Olsen. “The season had finished so we partied

well on into the night. The next day we travelled

back on the train to Manchester and went on the

open-air bus. Those memories last forever.”

Twenty-six years on, Olsen, now living in

Melbourne and working as assistant coach of

Melbourne Heart, is excited by the prospect

of a similar cup competition in Australia. The

proposed FFA Cup is seemingly set to start next

here early next season with a final mooted for

Australia Day

“It would be a great thing to do for football

here,” says Olsen. “To involve leagues below

the A-League, there would always be a fantastic

event for smaller clubs. There must be a way to

do it. It would give the whole football family a big

leap to be part of something like that. Then you

can get bigger clubs coming to [smaller clubs],

and get some rivalry and some history as well.”

DANISH DREAMINGJesper Olsen was 24 when he won the 1985 FA Cup final with Manchester United. Now assistant coach at Melbourne Heart, the former Denmark winger revisits the occasion with Jonathan Pippard

“It wasn’t a pretty game, not one of the great finals, but when you’re on the winning team, that doesn’t matter”

“Joe sat on the wooden bench inside the silent Preston dressing room.

He thought back to his Sydney days, when he and his mates would kick a ball until it got dark and the cops would chase them out of the park”

Joe, with wife Edith, in their family home on NSW’s Central Coast