1985 Football League Cup Final

Event

1984–85 Football League Cup

Norwich City	Sunderland

1	0

Date

24 March 1985

Venue

Wembley Stadium, London

Referee

Neil Midgley (Manchester)

Attendance

100,000

← 1984

1986 →

The 1985 Football League Cup Final was won by Norwich City. The Canaries defeated Sunderland 1–0 at Wembley Stadium on 24 March 1985 with an own goal scored by Gordon Chisholm, who deflected Asa Hartford's shot past goalkeeper Chris Turner. Later in the second half, Clive Walker missed a penalty awarded for a handball by Norwich defender Dennis van Wijk.

Looking back on the final, Norwich striker Mick Channon described the final as a "lovely day", and praised his teammates skill saying "we had some tremendous players like Steve Bruce and Dave Watson in the middle of the defence, Asa Hartford in midfield and John Deehan up front with me." In the lead-up to Norwich's goal Sunderland defender David Corner was attempting to usher the ball out of play for a Sunderland goal kick. However, Norwich kept the ball in play and promptly scored. In November 2011 Corner looked back on the incident stating "I should have kicked the ball out" and that he doesn't "think there's a day goes by where that game isn't mentioned". He then went on to say "It was a great honour for me to be playing for my hometown club in a national final, but I have to hold my hands up and say the goal was my fault." Norwich's victory was celebrated with an open-top bus parade.

Despite Norwich and Sunderland appearing in the final, they were both relegated to the Second Division at the end of the 1984–85 season. Normally the winners of the League Cup would qualify to play in the UEFA Cup, but on 31 May 1985 all English clubs were banned from European competitions on an indefinite basis as a result of the Heysel Stadium disaster two days earlier. This meant that Norwich City were unable to compete in the 1985–86 UEFA Cup.

...
Wikipedia