Arsenal v Newcastle United, 1976
Arsenal and England striker Malcolm ‘Supermac’ Macdonald was the centre of attention at Highbury on the 4th December 1976. Macdonald came up against his former club Newcastle United, who he had left for a record fee of £333,333 that summer, for the first time in this game. Centre-half Pat Howard made the same move from Tyneside to north London weeks into the new season.
Malcolm Macdonald, Arsenal v Newcastle United 1976
Arsenal were in transition from the double-winning side of 1971, with only George Armstrong and Pat Rice remaining in the starting line-up, as new 34-year-old manager Terry Neill, formerly of Tottenham, re-shaped the squad. This First Division fixture at Highbury marked Alan Ball’s last appearance before moving to Southampton, while John Radford moved to West Ham in the same month. Another of the old guard, England international and 1971 double winner Peter Storey, was also eased out by Neill during the season and would make the last of 501 first-team appearances for Arsenal in January 1977. However the club had a healthy youth policy, with the emerging Irish trio of David O’Leary, Liam Brady and Frank Stapleton all establishing themselves in the first team.
Newcastle had reached the previous season’s League Cup Final under manager Gordon Lee, an uncompromising figure who insisted his team would have ‘no stars’ and antagonised many fans by overseeing Macdonald’s departure. The striker himself admitted that he had ‘an incentive’ to excel against the manager who sold him. Lee was himself to leave Newcastle in January 1977 for Everton; the appointment of his replacement, first-team coach Richard Dinnis, was controversial. With limited playing experience or management credentials, Dinnis was not the board’s first choice as Lee’s replacement. However, player-power, in the form of threats to strike led by club captain Geoff Nulty, secured him the job.
Meanwhile Arsenal ended the season 8th in the First Division, Macdonald sharing the Golden Boot with Aston Villa’s Andy Gray on 25 goals. Newcastle secured UEFA Cup qualification with an impressive 5th place finish, their best league position for 26 years, and one they wouldn’t better until 1994. Micky Burns was their top scorer with 17 goals, and a return to European football after seven seasons saw Dinnis given a two-year contract. This didn’t prevent his sacking early in the following season, a disastrous campaign ending in relegation, and after which Nulty was signed by Lee for Everton. The club didn’t return to the First Division until 1984, with Kevin Keegan playing a leading role in his last season as a player; Keegan was manager at St. James’s Park ten years later, as Newcastle finally surpassed their 1976/77 league position.
Match details for Arsenal – Newcastle United; Highbury, Football League Division One, Saturday 4 December 1976:
Arsenal: 1 Jimmy Rimmer, 2 Pat Rice (sub John Matthews), 3 Sammy Nelson, 4 Trevor Ross, 5 David O’Leary, 6 Pat Howard, 7 Alan Ball, 8 Liam Brady, 9 Malcolm Macdonald, 10 Frank Stapleton, 11 George Armstrong. Manager: Terry Neill. Scorers: Ross, Macdonald (3), Stapleton
Newcastle United: 1 Mike Mahoney, 2 Irving Nattrass, 3 Alan Kennedy, 4 Tommy Cassidy, 5 Aidan McCaffery, 6 Geoff Nulty, 7 Stewart Barrowclough, 8 Paul Cannell, 9 Micky Burns, 10 Alan Gowling, 11 Tommy Craig. Manager: Gordon Lee. Scorers: Burns (2), Gowling
Attendance: 34, 051
Three of Arsenal’s all-time record appearance makers were in the side for this game – an honour O’Leary would eventually hold after overtaking Armstrong. Rice left for Watford in 1980 but on returning to Highbury four years later remained on the staff until 2012, from 1996 as assistant to Arsène Wenger. Still at the club at the time, Storey, Radford and Peter Simpson all remain in Arsenal’s top ten.
While Europe’s top prize has eluded both clubs, a number of European Cup winners were on display. Having been on the bench for Manchester United’s 1968 triumph, goalkeeper Jimmy Rimmer won a second time with Aston Villa in 1982, this time leaving the pitch injured inside ten minutes. Alan Gowling had been part of the Manchester United squad as a young player in 1968. His team-mate Alan Kennedy meanwhile made a mark on the competition as a Liverpool player, scoring the winning goal in the 1981 Final before clinching a penalty shoot-out against Roma three years later, in addition to collecting five league championships at Anfield.
Several images courtesy of Miles McClagan (Flickr & twitter @TheSkyStrikers).
The Football League in the 1970s forms part of my book Before the Premier League: A History of the Football League’s Last Decades.