Everton went into the 1985 FA Cup final already crowned league champions and chasing an unprecedented treble. Days earlier they had lifted the European Cup Winners’ Cup, after a 3-1 win over Rapid Vienna in Rotterdam.
Twice already that season, Everton had beaten their opponents Manchester United, including a 5-0 hammering at Goodison considered by many Evertonians the most complete team performance they had ever witnessed. But as Everton knew from 1968, past form counted for little in an FA Cup final.
In a largely humdrum affair – remembered mostly for Kevin Moran’s sending off for a foul on Peter Reid and Norman Whiteside’s outstanding curled winner – Everton could not summon enough strength to overcome United.
‘We lost because we were shattered,’ Graeme Sharp recalled in his autobiography. ‘It was purely and simply one game too far in a long, long season. The whole campaign and the emotions that had come with it, had finally caught up with us.’
