Everton 1-3 Liverpool: 1986 FA Cup final – as it happened

So commiserations to Everton … and congratulations to double-winners Liverpool! That was a wonderful final. Had Everton managed to find a second goal just after the break, when Liverpool collectively lost their heads – they looked gone – they’d have surely closed this game out. They’d been much the better side for most of the first hour. And that’s without bringing up the penalty shout. But Liverpool dug in, and when they finally found their rhythm, all bets were off. Two of their goals were astonishing pitch-length sweeps. Jan Molby was imperious, Ian Rush ice-cool and deadly. They imposed themselves on the final half hour to such an extent that 3-1 doesn’t flatter them in the slightest. You have to feel sorry for Everton, who came so close to the double themselves. But this Liverpool side are worthy winners of both league and cup, and can now be found in the record books alongside the famous teams of Preston North End, Aston Villa, Tottenham Hotspur and Arsenal. Not such a bad vintage after all, eh?

But Kendall tries hard, really hard, to look on the bright side. “We haven’t finished the season with nothing. It’s a marvellous season we’ve had. We’ve finished second in the League and been to Wembley. Most clubs would settle for that. But it’s a shattering end to the season when you think of who won the Double.”

A dejected Howard Kendall delivers his analysis: “We hadn’t really looked in any danger, we were dictating the game. But defensively you cannot do the things we did and get away with it, because a team like Liverpool will punish you.” As for the “blatant penalty” for Nicol’s first-half challenge on Sharp? “From where I was sitting Sharp had a free header and for him not to touch it there must have been an infringement. I believe my opinion will be proved right when I see it again, just as it was two years ago in the Milk Cup final when Hansen handled. It was the same referee, too. So we could have gone in at half-time 2-0 ahead. I know it’s going to sound like sour grapes, but incidents like that are turning points, and I can’t help but mention it.”

Kenny Dalglish, still dazzling, talks! “The lads deserve every single thing that’s happened. I am as delighted for them as I am for myself. To do the Double in your first season as manager is an absolute dream, but it would be harder if you didn’t have such good people to work with and work for. The important thing is that a team like ours wasn’t going to go haywire. With somebody like Rushie up front, we always had a chance to score, and on the day we have turned out to be deserved winners. But Everton can’t have too much wrong with them if they finish second in the League and runners-up in the Cup. We have tremendous respect for each other. Both sets of fans are a credit to the clubs, and the same goes for both sets of players.”

Alan Hansen goes up to lift the cup, a fan’s scarf tied jauntily around his neck. He joins Ron Yeats and Emlyn Hughes as a member of a very exclusive club: an FA Cup winning captain for Liverpool. Behind him, his boss and friend Kenny Dalglish beams like a schoolboy. He’s in an exclusive club too, an exclusive club of one: the first player-manager to win the FA Cup! Liverpool make it back down to the pitch and dance around for a bit. For all the league titles and European baubles, the FA Cup is a rare treat. Dalglish and Hansen, both getting on a bit, may have wondered if they’d ever get their hands on it.

Perhaps we should put those aforementioned parallel universes to use, because that was a brilliant final, but a very strange one. In another world, Everton could quite feasibly have built a three-goal lead, in which case this game would have been a one-sided blowout. But Liverpool could quite as easily have run up five or six goals, such was their dominance towards the end. The small margins. Back in the real world, 3-1 seems about right.

And that’s that! The double is Liverpool’s! Kenny Dalglish raises both arms in slightly exhausted glee. Not a bad first season in management, huh?

90 min +2: A cacophony of whistles. But suddenly they all stop, as Wembley holds its breath in the anticipation of witnessing a little bit of history. Molby hooks down the middle and Rush powers clear! He’s one on one with Mimms, and should complete the first hat-trick in an FA Cup final since Blackpool legend Stanley Mortensen scored three in 1953 … but his attempt to wedge casually over Mimms from 25 yards is weak and the keeper snaffles. In truth, it would have been cruel on Everton had they conceded a fourth.

90 min +1: Heath races down the left and wins a corner off Lawrenson. Everton play it short, working it to Bracewell on the corner of the box. He floats a diagonal ball towards Mountfield at the far stick, but Grobbelaar plucks it off his head, in the one-handed basketball style. What showmanship! All that earlier fussin’ and a-fightin’ long forgotten.

90 min: One last throw of the dice by Steven, who tears infield from the right and keeps on going, all the way across the face of the Liverpool box. But a pass doesn’t present itself, and there’s no opportunity to shoot. Suddenly Liverpool are breaking upfield on the counter! Dalglish flicks the ball to Rush, who makes good up the middle, with only Ratcliffe holding the fort. He’s got MacDonald in acres to his right, and in truth that’s the proper pass. But the heart rules the head, and he looks for Dalglish, overlapping on the left. What a waste, because Dalglish doesn’t go for the fairytale goal everyone in red wants to see, instead trying to feed a diagonal pass through to MacDonald. But MacDonald has checked his run, and the chance is gone. Not that it really matters, because the clock hits 90 and we enter stoppage time. There shouldn’t be much; this wonderfully strange, effervescent game has flowed from the get-go like a bubbling mountain stream.

88 min: Dalglish scampers down the right, and has his boot whipped off by Bracewell. Another opportunity to run down the clock, and it’s taken with pleasure.

87 min: Everton are going nowhere, so Liverpool’s supporters go early with their celebratory ditty: You’ll Never Walk Alone pings off the walls of the grand old place.

86 min: Reid comes through the back of Nicol, Everton’s frustration palpable. They must be wondering how they’ve let this one slip. They looked a shoo-in 30 minutes ago. Now they’re very much second best, having been totally swept away by a red tide. “Amazing that Molby has been the dominant player in this second half given the state of the pitch,” writes Niall Mullen. “Looks like Live Aid was last week, not last year.”

85 min: That was a sensational pitch-length team move. Whelan and Dalglish hug in delight, while Rush peels off to the fans, soon to be joined in his carefree cavort by Molby! Liverpool know they’re very close to the double now. That’s Rush’s 33rd goal of the season, and his second of the final. No assist for Molby this time – Whelan crafting the wonderful final pass – but he set the move alight by switching play in the centre circle, and he’s surely Liverpool’s man of the match.

Sheedy scampers down the middle and tries to float a ball towards Lineker on the edge of the box, but Nicol wins the header. Liverpool play out calmly from the back, Whelan curling to Johnston on the right. Johnston heads down to Rush, who spins infield and finds Molby in the centre circle. Van den Hauwe comes racing in, but Molby turns and knocks the ball past him, into the wide open space the right-back had vacated. What vision! Whelan romps into acres down the inside left, past the naughty blue balloon, and checks infield. Dalglish makes a run across him and to the left, and wants the ball; he’d be free in the box if Whelan plays the reverse pass. But Rush is sailing in from the right, and Whelan curls a perfect diagonal looper over Ratcliffe, the ball dropping gently at the feet of the striker. Rush takes a touch to sort his feet and batters an unstoppable shot across Mimms and into the bottom left, sending a camera flying. What a picture-book goal!

83 min: Space for Steven down the right, with plenty of options at the far post. He sends a directionless cross out for a goal kick. Lineker has the distracted air of somebody still thinking about that last golden opportunity.

82 min still: Rush ferrets down the right and pulls back for Molby, who curls long in the hope of finding Dalglish at the far post for a tap-in. The cross is too high, but Dalglish is still able to gather, turn and set up Whelan for a left-footed hoick that’s always curling wide right.

82 min: What a chance for Everton! Molby faffs about in midfield and is stripped by Heath. Suddenly Sharp is heading down the inside-left channel. Liverpool are super-light at the back, and Sharp flicks a pass down the middle for Lineker, sending him clear! But Lineker’s first touch lets him down, and that allows Beglin to confidently step across, snatch the ball off his toe, turn abruptly and stride off. What calm assurance from a man who looked so nervous less than half an hour ago!

81 min: Dalglish lashes long, Everton having committed just about everyone forward in a futile attack. Molby finds himself in a footrace with last-man Mountfield. The defender’s always going to get to the ball first. Liverpool will be wishing Rush was the player haring after that.

80 min: Johnston gives Dalglish a hospital pass in midfield and Reid takes over, chipping a fine first-time ball down the left channel to release Lineker. The striker’s clearly offside, and so the flag goes up and the whistle blows. Exactly why, with precious time running out, Lineker then decides to round Grobbelaar and ostentatiously roll into an empty net, to similarly hollow cheers, is unclear. But that’s what he does. Liverpool won’t mind at all, and Grobbelaar grabs the opportunity to take an age over the restart.

79 min: Liverpool ping it about a bit, before losing possession. Reid looks to power upfield, but is stripped by Whelan, who chips Rush into space, the ball nearly bouncing off a rogue blue balloon. Rush pulls back for Dalglish, who rolls a pass across for Molby. The Danish international has clearly been taking notes off Michael Laudrup – or maybe Johan Cruyff at Ajax – because he suddenly sparks into life, sashaying through a small gap along the inside-left channel, past three blue shirts in a flash. Suddenly he’s one on one with Mimms! Just as it looks as though Ricky Villa’s mesmerising 1981 dribble will no longer be the aesthete’s cup-final goal of choice, Mimms somehow blocks. Such a shame, that would have been a glorious way to seal the deal, by the man whose two assists has brought Liverpool to the brink of glory.

78 min: Rush embarks on a couple of sorties into enemy territory. First time he races after a bouncing ball down the right, but is crowded out by Ratcliffe and Van den Hauwe. The next time he’s clattered by Van den Hauwe, allowing Liverpool to take their sweet time over the restart. The clock ticks on. The double edges ever closer.

77 min: Everton are awarded a free kick just to the right of the Liverpool D, Hansen penalised for climbing all over Heath. They take it quickly, and look to have utterly wasted it, going nowhere. But they retain possession, and eventually a game of head tennis breaks out in the Liverpool box. A poor Lawrenson clearance allows Mountfield to tee up Sharp, who tries to whistle a bicycle kick goalwards. It’s wild and high. Nowhere near.

76 min: Sharp clumsily clips Lawrenson. There’s no malice in it, but it allows Lawrenson to stay down and eat up some time, game-management 101. Incidentally, if Everton are heading for double heartbreak, spare a thought also for Heart of Midlothian, who were eight minutes away from their first Scottish title since 1960 last weekend, before Dundee’s Albert Kidd cruelly dashed their hopes and let Celtic pip them at the death. They’ve just gone 3-0 down against Aberdeen in the Scottish Cup final at Hampden. Misery assured for Alex MacDonald’s men. Congratulations to Dons boss Alex Ferguson, who’ll take Scotland to Mexico next month, albeit controversially without a certain Alan Hansen.

75 min: Sheedy, deep down the left, floats one in for Lineker. Hansen is forced to concede a corner with a spectacular diving header. Molby heads the resulting set piece clear. Everton are still finding some good positions, but the final ball is letting them down.

74 min: Van den Hauwe swings one in deep from the right. Sheedy tries to diddle Johnston on the left but can’t get the better of the relentless Liverpool goalscorer, who has put in some shift at both ends of the field. The newly arrived Heath takes up possession and has his first whack, but Whelan blocks.

72 min: Everton replace Gary Stevens with Adrian Heath, who came off the bench to score in the fifth round at Tottenham Hotspur, and sparked a two-goal comeback at Luton Town in the quarter-finals. More super-sub heroics coming up?

71 min: Here’s something both sets of fans can agree on: a lusty rendition of “Are you watching, Manchester?” Ah, they’ll have their time again some day. What goes round always comes round.

70 min: Everton pin Liverpool back for the first time in a while. A long throw leads to a deflected Sheedy slapshot and a corner on the left. Steven takes, but Grobbelaar, a completely different man now, rises to claim with supreme confidence.

69 min: Dalglish slaloms down the inside-right channel with regal grace, not so much evading a lunge from Van den Hauwe as ignoring it. He’s eventually crowded out by three blue shirts on the edge of the Everton box. The ball breaks to Molby, who yanks a speculative long-range shot miles to the right of goal. Some run by the 35-year-old Dalglish, though. It’s no coincidence that Liverpool’s revival this season began when the player-manager started naming himself in the team again.

68 min: But Lawrenson loses control and immediately clatters into Reid, and that’s a free kick to Everton, 30 yards out. Reid springs up, a parcel of busy fury, and Lawrenson briefly considers engaging, but the referee steps in to nip the bout in the bud. Sheedy floats the free kick to the right-hand post, but it’s too long and Steven has no hope of getting on the end of it. Goal kick.

67 min: This is better. Mountfield goes long down the right. Sharp gets on the end of the pass and drives towards the box, with Lineker to his left. For a second, Liverpool look exposed, but Lineker strays offside, causing Sharp to delay and allowing Lawrenson to stride off with the ball.

66 min: Van den Hauwe sends one into the Liverpool box from the left. Lineker is the only man anywhere near the action, yet nowhere near the ball. Everton suddenly look diminished. Dispirited. But there’s plenty of time left yet. Chin up, chaps.

65 min: A Mimms goal kick ends up at the feet of Sheedy out on the left. He wedges a pass into the centre in the hope of releasing Steven, who looks yards offside … but isn’t. Liverpool’s defensive line having stopped, they’re happy to see Grobbelaar racing out of his box to skelp clear. Ah hold on, the flag belatedly goes up for offside. Even so. This hasn’t been a defensive masterclass from the champions. Everton will surely get chances to get back into this.

64 min: The Everton bench look stunned. Howard Kendall and his assistant Colin Harvey both adopt the internationally recognised head-in-hand pose of great woe and despair. You can’t blame them. Everton had dominated for most of the match, and came so close to building a two-goal lead, only for this whole affair to be turned upside down in short order. The last wild and crazy ten minutes could so easily have unfolded in so many other ways. Thin lines. It’s lucky there are infinite multiple universes.

Beglin sends a long pass down the left for Rush, who faces up to Mountfield before flicking inside for Molby, striding down the channel. Molby enters the box and takes a touch to put enough distance between himself and Stevens. He fires low and hard along the face of the six-yard box. Dalglish arrives late and can’t connect. But Johnston barrels in at the far post and can’t miss, slamming into the bottom corner before leaping into the sky and performing a cute little scissor kick! He’s got his goal after all … and it comes exactly 70 seconds after Grobbelaar stopped Sharp restoring Everton’s lead!

62 min: So having said all that, Liverpool suddenly slip back into their pre-equaliser state of high panic. And it’s their normally unflappable captain who’s at fault! Stevens launches long down the inside-right channel. Hansen is ahead of Lineker in a footrace and gets to the ball first … only to hook a suicidal clearance across the face of the box, the ball arcing perfectly towards the head of Sharp! The Everton striker rises above Nicol and sends a looping header towards the top left. It’s surely going in … but Grobbelaar backpedals furiously and, arching his back and extending to full stretch, fingertips spectacularly over the bar! The keeper ends up in the net, from zero to hero in the space of six minutes! Placing a cherry on top of an elaborately iced cake, he then plucks Steven’s corner from the sky, unperturbed by the crowd gathered with a view to making trouble at his near post.

61 min: Liverpool are more adventurous now, their passing moves more ambitious in scope. A widescreen minute sees Dalglish Cruyff-turn his way out of trouble to release MacDonald into space, the former Leicester man nearly getting on the end of a long-distance one-two with Whelan out on the left. Then Molby sprays a glorious diagonal pass towards Nicol on the right; another attempted one-two, this one from closer range with Johnston, doesn’t quite come off. What a difference a goal makes!

60 min: That was Rush’s 32nd goal of the season in all competitions. Both star forwards have delivered on all the pre-match hype today. The paying punters are getting plenty of bang for their buck.

59 min: Talk about scoring against the run of play. Doubly worrying for Everton is the fact that Liverpool have never lost a match in which Rush has scored. He’s found the net in 120 games; Liverpool have won 101 of them and drawn 19. Records are, of course, there to be broken, so let’s see how this pans out. It couldn’t happen in a major final at Wembley, surely?

58 min: Soon after the restart, Liverpool, their tails suddenly up, come at Everton again, Dalglish and Johnston rampaging with purpose down the right. But Johnston crosses to nobody in particular and Everton are able to clear their lines and their heads.

Liverpool play out from the back. Lawrenson nearly loses possession but rides a couple of challenges before poking the ball to Beglin on the left. Beglin goes long, looking for Dalglish. Mountfield covers and passes to Stevens out on the Everton right. Stevens looks for Reid up the flank, but his pass is clanked straight at Whelan, who rolls inside for Molby. The big Dane draws three Everton shirts, then flicks the ball through them with outrageous ease, releasing Rush with a perfectly weighted dink down the channel. Rush takes one touch to round Mimms on the left, then another to smoothly roll home. Johnston, the cheeky get, follows the ball in and tries to toe-poke it over the line, but he doesn’t get there in time, it’s Rush’s goal. Despite all the farcical antics up the other end, the champions have drawn level!

57 min: Whelan slices high into the air in the centre circle. Very strange. Van den Hauwe hits an instant pass down the inside-left channel for Lineker to chase. This time Hansen gets up a head of steam and manages to poke the ball back to his keeper just before Lineker can take control, enter the box, score number 41, and put this final beyond Liverpool. Magnificent last-ditch defence. And then …

56 min again: A speculative Johnston hoof down the left is guided back towards Mimms by Mountfield. The backpass reaches the keeper, but only just, and Rush was lurking. Liverpool’s defenders may be lost in a fog of panic and confusion, but you can bet your last bronze centime that Rush, always a study in clarity of thought, remains sharp of mind and on the scent.