1963 FA Cup Final
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| Event | 1962–63 FA Cup | ||||||
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| Date | 25 May 1963 | ||||||
| Venue | Wembley Stadium, London | ||||||
| Referee | Ken Aston | ||||||
| Attendance | 99,604 | ||||||
The 1963 FA Cup Final was the final of the 1962–63 FA Cup, the 82nd season of England's premier club football competition. The match was played at Wembley Stadium (which was fully roofed for the first time) on 25 May 1963 and contested by Manchester United and Leicester City. United won 3–1, with a goal from Denis Law and two from David Herd, lifting the trophy for the third time, while City had now played in three FA Cup finals and had still yet to win the trophy. Ken Keyworth scored the consolation goal for Leicester.
Despite fielding nine internationals United had struggled during the season while their opponents City had performed well, doing the league double over United in the process and thus entered the final as slight favourites. The importance of televised coverage came to the fore this year as the two sides tossed for choice of colours despite traditionally wearing red and blue shirts respectively. Those colours would look identical to the viewers on their black and white televisions so Leicester, having lost the toss switched to white.
The opening fifteen minutes of the game were error strewn and Leicester could easily have found themselves three goals in front as United's clearly nervous goalkeeper, David Gaskell, presented them with three opportunities to fire into an unguarded net. On each occasion, Keyworth, Stringfellow and Gibson in turn were unable to finish the moves off with a last-ditch United challenge keeping the scoreline blank.
Having survived the third scare in the fifteenth minute, United took a stranglehold on the match which they never relinquished, peppering Gordon Banks goalmouth with several shots off target before finally taking a deserved lead after half an hour. A Bobby Charlton shot had been saved comfortably by Banks, who then bowled the ball out to Gibson. Paddy Crerand read the throw and raced in to intercept the ball twenty-five yards from the Leicester goal before passing to Denis Law, who turned and fired past Banks and two defenders to open the scoring. Indeed, Law could have had a second goal ten minutes later when he took the ball around Banks but was unable to steer the ball into the goal under pressure from two defenders.
Leicester improved at the start of the second half and were presented with yet another chance by the nervous Gaskell, who dropped the ball at the feet of Cross who was unable to get his shot on target. United though gradually regained their supremacy and deservedly sealed Leicester's fate after fifty-seven minutes when a cross field ball from Giles found Charlton unmarked. He raced into the box and shot at Banks who could only parry the shot into the path of David Herd who tapped into the empty net, triggering victorious choruses of "When the reds go marching in" from the United fans.
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