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He tells that special
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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
images DLR PHOTO + GETTY IMAGES
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

entrance to the players’ tunnel. Australian, Errol Flynn, in a lift.

“We were sitting there listening as the crowd sang Inside Preston’s dressing room before the game,
the hymn Abide With Me before kick-off,” recalls Edith, the players were nervous, talking quietly to each

“At 2.45pm the bell sounded to call the whom Joe lovingly refers to as his “greatest trophy” as
the pair pose for photos in their living room.
other. Even Docherty, the comedian of the team, was
not his normal garrulous self. Billy Forbes was pacing

two teams into the tunnel. Up they walked, As the crowd burst into a frenzy of colour and
song, and the referee blew his whistle to get the game
up and down, going into the shower room, sitting on
the toilet and having a cigarette.

side by side, along the long incline towards
underway, Edith took in a sharp breath.
“Wouldn’t it be great to play here next year?”
Marston with Preston
At 2.45pm the bell sounded to call the two teams
into the tunnel. Up they walked, side by side, along the

the streaming light and blast of noise” she said to Joe.

As a matter of fact, it would be. Sort of.
teammate Tommy Thompson long incline towards the streaming light and blast of
noise. The crowd was so loud it was impossible to tell

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 “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”
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
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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
Marston received this medal
in 2009 for his services to
the game in Australia
Joe, with wife Edith,
in their family home on
NSW’s Central Coast
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.
DANISH DREAMING
Jesper 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
AS A boy, Jesper Olsen tuned in along with winning team that doesn’t really matter,” says here early next season with a final mooted for
the rest of the world to watch the FA Cup on
television in a faraway land. Unlike millions of
Olsen. “The season had finished so we partied
well on into the night. The next day we travelled
Australia Day
“It would be a great thing to do for football
others however, one day in 1985, he found himself back on the train to Manchester and went on the here,” says Olsen. “To involve leagues below
in the middle of the story. Having made his name open-air bus. Those memories last forever.” the A-League, there would always be a fantastic
with Ajax as a speedy winger, Olsen had been Twenty-six years on, Olsen, now living in event for smaller clubs. There must be a way to
signed by Manchester United manager Ron Melbourne and working as assistant coach of do it. It would give the whole football family a big
Atkinson at the beginning of the 1984-85 season. Melbourne Heart, is excited by the prospect leap to be part of something like that. Then you
May 18, 1985 was to be the biggest day of his of a similar cup competition in Australia. The can get bigger clubs coming to [smaller clubs],
career to date – an FA Cup final against league proposed FFA Cup is seemingly set to start next and get some rivalry and some history as well.”
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
“It wasn’t a pretty game, not one of the great finals, but
when you’re on the winning team, that doesn’t matter”
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