It’s just over 60 years since Quakers pulled off one of the greatest results in our history – Simon Weatherill remembers the FA Cup fourth round tie at Chelsea on 25^th January 1958 in today's Memory Match.

The 1957/58 season would provide Darlington fans with one of the club’s best ever runs in the FA Cup and it provided Feethams with one of its most famous ever afternoons. The cup run started in unspectacular fashion with a 2-0 win at Rochdale in the first round with a brace by centre forward Ron Harbertson. Round two saw a home tie with Boston United who were beaten 5-3 with a Dave Carr hat trick and two more from Harbertson. Quakers fans dreamt of drawing glamorous opposition in round three but they had to settle for an away tie at Norwich City, who were riding high in the Southern section of Division 3. Patchy league form was put to one side as the Canaries were beaten 2-1 at Carrow Road with goals by Harbertson and Tommy Moran. This time the draw was kinder to the Quakers and they got the glamour tie that their fans wished for. In the fourth round Darlington would be away to Chelsea. The game would take place at Stamford Bridge on Saturday 25 January 1958.

Preparations for the big game were hardly ideal. In the two league games leading up to the Chelsea tie the Quakers were beaten 2-1 at Tranmere and 4-0 at Gateshead, leaving them fourth from bottom of Division 3N with only 2 wins and 12 defeats from the 14 away games played so far. Chelsea had warmed up for the tie with two home wins, 3-1 against Everton and 2-1 against Newcastle and sat in a healthy 8th place in the top flight with 29 points from their 27 games. They were managed by Ted Drake and included in their team an 18 year old inside forward, in his first season of league football. Jimmy Greaves was Chelsea’s top scorer, with 15 goals in his 20 appearances.

Darlington took a 13 man squad south for the game. The players trained at Brighton’s ground on the Friday morning, relaxed with a stroll along the sea front in the afternoon, and took in a pantomime in the evening, before travelling up to London on the Saturday morning. Stamford Bridge had a light covering of snow on the morning of the match, but a sudden thaw meant that although the pitch would be heavy and treacherous in places it was perfectly playable. As expected, Harry Bell was recalled to the team and took the place of the unlucky Tommy Moran.

A crowd of 40,759 (paying receipts of £5,589) crammed into the Bridge to see the game and saw the visitors make an amazing start. With only four minutes on the clock Keith Morton and Jim Milner combined well down the right wing before Morton crossed into the box for Ron Harbertson to fire home an unstoppable shot from 15 yards out. Things nearly got better for the Quakers as they continued to push forwards and Chelsea keeper Reg Matthews kept his team in the game with two superb saves from Dave Carr, the second of which was a full length dive to turn the ball around the post. Chelsea began to exert some pressure and won a succession of corners, but these were safely dealt with by Quakers keeper Joe Turner and his defenders. Turner saved a hard drive by Lewis and then had to be alert to clear a dangerous cross by Brabrook, but it was Darlington who scored again on 28 minutes. They played their way in again down the right wing and winger Keith Morton had a shooting chance but Matthews saved well at his feet. The ball spun loose across the goalmouth to Carr, who tapped it into the empty net.

Chelsea hit back and Turner made good saves from Brabrook and Mortimer, before presenting Lewis with a chance from a parried shot, but the Chelsea winger fired the rebound over the bar. The last chance of the half fell to Harbertson when he raced clear of the home defence and fired in a shot from 20 yards that grazed the cross bar. Half time: Chelsea 0 Darlington 2.

Darlington stunned their hosts with a third goal five minutes into the second half. A Dave Carr corner was forced home by Morton, who beat Matthews with his shot and Chelsea left back MacFarlane, who just failed to block the shot on the line. The home side finally cottoned on to the tactics that the Quakers were using, ignoring the gluepot in the centre of the pitch and using the wings where the pitch was much firmer. Their right winger Peter Brabrook began to influence the game as the first division side took charge. His wing play led his team through an 18 minute purple patch where they managed to score three times and level the match with goals by Lewis (on 52 mins) Tindall (67) and McNichol (70). Both sides had chances to win the game in the closing stages. Morton was tackled as he tried to turn the ball into the net and injured his knee, which made him a passenger for the last 15 minutes, and the unusually quiet Jimmy Greaves hit an upright in the closing moments with virtually his only meaningful contribution to the game, but both sides had to settle for a battling, hard fought 3-3 draw.

The replay took place at Feethams on the following Wednesday afternoon with a 2pm kick off. (No floodlights in those days.) In another hard fought game on a difficult pitch Darlington took the lead through Tommy Moran on 35 minutes after good work by Harry Bell. Chelsea equalised three minutes later through McNichol and that was the end of the scoring in 90 minutes, to take the replay into extra time. In the first half of extra time the rampaging Darlington forwards finished the tie with three unanswered goals in a 5 minute spell. Moran scored his second of the match, closely followed by strikes from Carr and Harbertson.

Chelsea produced a 16 page programme priced at 6d, which contained plenty of reading material for fans of both clubs. “Our Visitors Today” had two pages covering the Quakers – the season so far and pen pictures of the players. There was a team photo and another two page article entitled “This and That” with interesting historical items about Quakers’ history. The team line ups were on the centre pages.

Team v Chelsea: 1 Joe Turner 2 Len Green 3 Brian Henderson 4 Bill Rutherford 5 Ron Greener 6 Ken Furphy 7 Keith Morton 8 Jim Milner 9 Ron Harbertson 10 Harry Bell 11 Dave Carr.