On March 17, 1973, Saturday shoppers were treated to the bizarre sight of football fans (mainly Arsenal supporters) queuing around the block to gain access to various Odeon cinemas across north London.
It wasn’t with the purpose of watching the recently released gritty crime thriller The Offence - starring former James Bond actor Sean Connery - but to enjoy the plum FA Cup quarter-final clash between Dave Sexton’s Chelsea and Bertie Mee’s Gunners, who were chasing another league and FA Cup double.
The unusual cinematic football experience was due to the construction of Chelsea’s new East Stand at Stamford Bridge, and the crowd for the showpiece match would be limited to 40,000. Keen to ensure that as few of our supporters travelled to Stamford Bridge as possible, the Blues approached the Football Association to ask special permission for the game to be screened in a clutch of Odeon cinemas within an eight-mile radius of N5.
Both clubs lobbied the FA for the screenings to go ahead, and the FA agreed, on the proviso that it was merely ‘an experiment.’ There had been much talk in the game for years about showing games in cinemas in the event that demand for tickets outweighed supply, and to help boost cinemas, many of which were struggling financially.
The rip-roaring clash was a bona fide classic, worthy of its silver screen billing. At the centre of things were two of English football’s A-listers: Chelsea’s Peter Osgood and our Charlie George. The talented pair had long sung one another’s praises in an era when the game was becoming more systematic and formulaic, and George and Osgood wore their non-conformity badges with pride, which occasionally led to conflict with their respective managers.
Osgood’s spectacular volleyed opener (“only players like Osgood take goals like that,” boomed commentator David Coleman) was voted Goal of the Season by Match Of The Day viewers, but we fought back in the first half, with Alan Ball heading in a George Armstrong corner, and George poking home at the second attempt to put us 2-1 ahead. The tiny knot of Gunners fans who did travel were ecstatic.
Future Gunner John Hollins then equalised in the second half to give his side a 2-2 draw. The atmosphere inside the various Odeons was raucous, despite the official ban on alcohol within the cinemas.
Three days later, we hosted Chelsea in the Highbury replay, in front of a gigantic 62,746 crowd, but this time, those fans who couldn’t attend the game had to settle for highlights on BBC’s Sportsnight. Goals from Ball and Ray Kennedy helped steer us into the semi-final, where we surprisingly lost to Second Division Sunderland.
Sadly, this was the last Arsenal v Chelsea showpiece occasion for some time. The west Londoners’ building work caused them financial upheaval and led to spells in the Second Division, and we also struggled to recapture past glories by the mid ‘70s when mavericks Osgood and George had departed.
Although they were on the cusp of a period of relative decline, the memorable 1973 Odeon-screened FA Cup London derby was as gripping as any cinematic experience that year.
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