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One of the basic lessons coaches all around the world and of every sport teach youngsters is to not give up till the end, to fight till the last moment – till the proverbial fat lady sings.
The same fighting ‘never say die’ spirit is what creates some of the most exciting matches. To see a team snatch victory from the jaws of defeat is perhaps the most exhilarating, the most pure form of sporting satisfaction. Although the fans of the losing team are sure to feel the exact opposite.
Such extreme contrasting feelings are associated with every ‘comeback’. But, what sets apart an English second division clash between Charlton Athletic and Huddersfield Town from long back in 1957 is the enormity of the fight-back, the odds the winning team overcame, the mini fight-back by the losing team only to enter the books with a record loss and the winner with the last kick of the game.
The teams:
Charlton Athletic with an FA Cup win in 1947 had established themselves as a first division team in the 1940s and the first half of 50s only to be relegated to the second division in the 1956-57 season after conceding a massive 120 goals.
Huddersfield, no longer the team from their glory days of the 1920s, had been relegated to the second division a season before Charlton. And after Andy Beattie resigned in November of 1956, Bill Shankly, the then-assistant manager was promoted as the manager of Huddersfield.
The fateful day:
With it being a fixture just before the Christmas with more than half of the league fixtures remaining and with Charlton just on the fringes of promotion-challenging places, the game was just another league fixture with not much riding on its outcome.
Thus, there was little in the visit of mid table Huddersfield Town to inspire the locals on the Saturday before Christmas. As a result a below average crowd of 12,535 were in attendance.
How it transpired:
The match started slowly with the visitors having a slight upper hand in the opening exchanges. There was no highlight moment till the 17th minute when Charlton’s skipper Derek Ufton went for a tackle and landed badly on the heavy ground resulting with him being carted off to the hospital, where it was diagnosed that he had dislocated his shoulder.
With no substitutions allowed during those days meant that the home side had to play more than 70 minutes with only 10 men without their centre-half captain.
The Charlton defense did their best to hold the fort but 10 minutes later, the inevitable happened and Huddersfield took the lead when Les Massie fired home from point blank range. After eight more minutes, Alex Bain found space in the Charlton defense left due to Ufton’s injury and slotted home a second for the away side. The score line remained the same till half time.
Being two goals and a man down, Charlton manager Jimmy Troter had to make some tactical change to save the day and he pushed their most influential player, left winger Johnny Summers to centre forward.
There is an interesting story about Summers that he was uncomfortable with his shoes as they had worn out so much that he was more concerned about them coming apart which slightly hampered his performance. Finally, in the half time break, he replaced them with new ones. The change of boots did the trick as he pulled one back for Charlton barely two minutes after the restart.
A popular football cliché says a team is most vulnerable just after scoring. And that was the case with Charlton. Huddersfield took complete control by scoring twice in the next four minutes. With their team 1-4 down, some of the fans had enough and started trickling out of the stadium.
Huddersfield team of the mid-1950s
And when Bobby Ledger was left unmarked to slot home the visitors fifth just past the hour mark the remaining fans would have wished even they had departed early to carry on with their Christmas shopping. With about 27 minutes remaining, one man down and four goals to the worse, there was no way Charlton could have given their fans an early Christmas gift.
But that was when all hell broke loose. Johnny Summers with his new shoes upped the ante.
The left-legged attacker first made an assist for Johnny Ryan and then scored his second with his right leg and Charlton 1-5 down after 62 minutes had reduced the deficit to 3-5 in space of just two minutes.
Huddersfield seemed shaken by this sudden Summers burst. They tried to hold him and Charlton to the scoreline but their resistance was feeble. The hustle and the sway of the opponents and the noise from an excited crowd was too much.
Ryan was now giving Jack Connor a torrid time and Stuart Leary and Summers were positively running amok down the Huddersfield right. In the end they crumbled under the pressure.
On 73 minutes, Summers completed his hattrick and five minutes later, he scored his fourth and the team’s fifth to level the match at 5-5.
Everyone present could feel what would happen next. And it did. With nine minutes to spare, Summers and Charlton completed the unlikely comeback sending the crowd into a wild frenzy. Even Bill Shankly, who would later go on to lead Liverpool to numerous trophies, seemed nonplussed.
But he would have been pleased when his side showed real character to mount a mini-comeback of their own. On the stroke of the 86th minute, Stan Howard equalised for Huddersfield although it had a stroke of luck attached to it as the shot deflected off Charlton defender John Hewie and went past Willie Duff into his own goal. The cliff- hanger match now stood finely balanced at 6 all.
But from the moment Charlton had equalized the match at 5-5, everyone could feel it would end only one way. The proverbial writing was already on the walls. With the clock winding down, in the last minute of the game, Summers launched one final assualt going past Tony Conwell and launched a cross into the box – Charlton’s other goal-scorer Ryan met it perfectly and put it past the Huddersfield keeper Sandy Kennon. 7-6 and the home fans were in raptures, not able to believe the improbable if not impossible comeback that they had witnessed.
There was just enough time left for the referee to re-start the game before he blew his whistle one final time calling an end to a game described as ‘Amazing, incredible, fantastic…‘ by a reporter at the time.
Shankly later described it as “one of the most amazing games I have ever seen“.
One can only imagine how devastated the Huddersfield players and fans would have been feeling at that moment. Perhaps they would have been wondering would it have ended differently if their rising star and future Manchester United legend ‘Denis Law’ had not been injured and had featured in the match.
It still remains the only occasion when a team has scored six goals and has ended as the losing side.
The Celebrations:
As expected, once the ref blew the final whistle the fans raced on the field to celebrate with their heroes. The Charlton players were chaired by the fans on their shoulders. The fans remained on the pitch celebrating. The players reappeared in the main stand to accept the congratulations. Naturally Summers received the bulk of the fulsome praise.
Unquestionably it is the greatest comeback ever seen inside a 90-minute game.
