Arsenal entered 1975 sitting 19th in the table having won one of their last five league matches. It was therefore undoubtedly with some relief that on January 4 1975 the club turned its attention to the FA Cup. Unfortunately, the relief didn’t last and the match ended Arsenal 1 York City 1 in front of just 27,029 at Highbury. The team that took the field was Rimmer, Rice, McNab, Kelly, Mancini, Powling, Storey, Ball, Armstrong, Kidd, Cropley.
York had risen from the fourth to the second division in the years since 1971, as Arsenal had sunk from Double winners to relegation candidates over the same time. But even so…
With no Radford or Simpson Arsenal looked unbalanced and were reliant on Ritchie Powling to break up the York raids, which were organised along the lines used by the 7th century Vikings who had occupied their city. As a result of this novel style of play York took the lead after mistakes by Kelly and McNab allowed Holmes to race through as if on his longship from 60 yards out before passing to Seal who could slot home. They never even had to raise their swords.
Kelly redeemed himself seven minutes later with a strong volley which gave Arsenal the equaliser.
After the match it was announced that the York manager, and architect of their rise up the leagues, would be leaving to work at Huddersfield. Arsenal fans clutched at the news hoping it might upset the York players in the replay. In a season like this it was a case of clutching at anything.
The replay was on 7 January and ended York City 1 Arsenal 3, 15,362 packing into the ground.
In fact there was very little attention given to this game as the media turned as one to Walsall, who had beaten Manchester United 3-2 in a replay at Fellows Park. It just shows, disasters didn’t only happen to Arsenal at this time.