THE F.A. CUP WINNERS’ MEDAL OF CHELSEA’S GREAT PLAYMAKER, ALAN HUDSON

Football is known for hyperbole, but in the case of Alan Hudson, Chelsea and the 1970 FA Cup season, the legend is real.

The final replay at Old Trafford is still considered “the most brutal game” in the history of English football. To this day it remains second only to the 1966 World Cup Final for viewing figures for a sports broadcast at 28 million, and is ranked among the greatest FA Cup finals ever.

Football is known for hyperbole, but in the case of Alan Hudson, Chelsea and the 1970 FA Cup season, the legend is real.

The final replay at Old Trafford is still considered “the most brutal game” in the history of English football. To this day it remains second only to the 1966 World Cup Final for viewing figures for a sports broadcast at 28 million, and is ranked among the greatest FA Cup finals ever.

Hudson had narrowly missed becoming Chelsea’s youngest ever first-team player two years earlier, when injury delayed his debut by nine months. But when he finally joined in February 1969, still aged just 17, he soon became the team’s creative midfield playmaker. The squad included the likes of goalkeeper Peter Bonetti, midfielder Peter Osgood and striker Charlie Cooke, all household names that would go on to lift the trophy in the April 29 FA Cup Final 2-1 victory against Leeds.

For Hudson, though, a major force as he played in every match that took the team to the final, it was to be a day of frustration as an ankle injury ruled him out of the Wembley 2-2 draw and the replay 18 days later, which was moved to Old Trafford after the Horse of the Year Show had ruined the turf at Wembley.

“l played my first ever FA Cup match in January 1970, making the first goal for Peter Osgood against Birmingham City. Two and a half months later I went down that hole at West Bromwich Albion and knew immediately that the dream was over.

“I don’t think the supporters really understood how bad my ankle was, but when it went I immediately knew that Wembley and Mexico, where I was due to play in the World Cup, were out. It was my first full season in the game and I had made quite a mark for a lad of my age (18), but that was heart-breaking, looking back.”

Hudson sat on the side-lines and when the Wembley game ended, Chelsea manager Dave Sexton told him that they were going to put him in hospital for treatment to ensure he could make the replay. “His exact words to me were: Had you played today we wouldn’t have needed a replay.”

Hudson did not recover in time, but he was back in the side before too long, playing a major role in Chelsea defeating Real Madrid in the European Cup Winner’s Cup in Athens the following year.

“Following the disappointment I had had at not playing in the FA Cup Final, to have lost against Real Madrid would have been devastating, so I was delighted at the result.”

The following season was Hudson’s most prolific at Chelsea, scoring six goals in 52 appearances before losing 2-1 to Stoke City in the League Cup Final.
Little more than 18 months later, with the fortunes of Chelsea at a low ebb because of the club’s debt burden and because of a falling-out with manager Dave Sexton, Hudson signed for Tony Waddington’s Stoke City for a record-breaking £240,000 and, in his debut for the Potters against Bill Shankly’s Liverpool in January 1974, put in a mesmerising performance. Shankly visited the home side’s dressing room, shook his hand and said: “That’s one of the best performances I’ve seen. Fantastic...well done, son”.

As Hudson reveals, though, when he turned up at the ground that day, he had not expected to play.

“After my ankle injury, I could never really play again on hard ground and they had had a drought so it was like stone. But then they watered the pitch for me and it became saturated so I went on. Even now, I consider that to have been the game of my life.

Bill Shankly was no longer the manager, but he was at the game. He had never come down to the other team’s dressing room before. I was a big Liverpool fan, so you can imagine what an honour it was for me. It’s amazing how two hours can change your whole life.”

Hudson went on to miss only one game out of 162 in his first two seasons at Stoke’s Victoria Ground, and the team finished second in the league in 1974-5.

Financial troubles at Stoke, exacerbated by extensive damage to the club’s Victoria Ground wreaked by a storm in January 1976, meant that the club had to sell players, and Arsenal swooped for Hudson, still then only 25 years old and with bounteous talent, by offering £200,000.

Paired with Liam Brady in central midfield, the partnership looked destined for great things and he helped the team reach the final of the 1978 FA Cup, when they lost 1-0 to Ipswich Town.

However, fitness issues again plagued Hudson and personal differences with manager Terry Neill meant that over two seasons Hudson only made 36 appearances for the Gunners.

Aged 27, he signed for Seattle Sounders in the North American Super League and, in 94 appearances for them between 1979 and 1983, scored 20 goals. Before the demise of the NASL in 1984 Hudson played briefly for Chelsea Reserves and was then re-signed by Stoke City, helping the latter survive a relegation battle in 1984, but the Potters went down to Division 2 the following year and a knee injury forced his retirement from the game in September 1985.

Hudson’s was a career that also saw him win nine caps internationally for the under-23s, the first of which was against Scotland at Sunderland’s Roker Park in March 1970, a match abandoned two-thirds the way through because of a blizzard.

Later, England manager Don Revie called him up twice in 1975, when his team beat West Germany 2-0 and then Cyprus 5-0.

As with a number of other leading lights of the Beautiful Game, retirement brought setbacks and hardship for Hudson, including multiple injuries caused by being run over by a car. But in overcoming these difficulties he took up writing, with The Working Man’s Ballet, a title taken from Tony Waddington’s description of Stoke City’s style of play in that 1974-5 season, receiving critical acclaim in 1998. Since then he has worked as a columnist on the Stoke Evening Sentinel and as a radio commentator on the 2006 FIFA World Cup. In retirement he continues to live in Chelsea.

Now Noonans are honoured to be able to offer Hudson’s 1970 FA Cup Winners’ medal for sale on June 15 in the Coins & Historical medals auction. Such was its importance to his family that a loop was attached so that his mother could wear it as part of a necklace.

“My father made me the player that I am, but I gave it to my mum because, as they say, behind every man there is a great woman. She always looked after me and cleaned my kit and boots. She wore it every day before dying ten or 15 years ago. Then I passed it onto her brother and a couple of weeks ago his wife died and he gave it back to me.

“I don’t see medals as trophies, they are great reminders of great times, and I am happy to share those now by letting it go at auction, especially as Noonans have promised to create a replica for me to keep.”

If Hudson missed the final, he was very much part of the celebrated team choir who sang the Chelsea anthem Blue is the Colour. A catchy and robust performance, it underpinned the camaraderie of the team, as Hudson explained to journalist Jeff Powell in an interview with the Daily Mail: “Our strength at Chelsea came from the spirit of our nights out. We pulled for each other. We never knew when we were beaten. We wouldn’t lie down. Great character. Never give in. Never give up.”
Noonans Head of Department Peter Preston-Morley sums up the significance of the medal:
“Talent, courage, dedication, self-belief and teamwork all came together to write one of the best-known stories of the modern game in Chelsea’s 1970 FA Cup season.
“Alan Hudson was the player at the centre of that story as he created the opportunity for the likes of Charlie Cooke, Peter Osgood and Ian Hutchinson to score goals. He was central to the magic that took the team to Wembley and then on to Old Trafford success, and his winners’ medal was just reward.”

The estimate is £20,000-30,000.