Nevertheless, it was plucky little Coventry who came away with the trophy after one of the best finals ever in the history of the competition and with a Man of the Match performance from Dave Bennett. The prolific winger, often seen as a larger-than-life character by his peers, had a sensational game and the match of course takes centre stage in his memoirs.
Recently published under the title “Benno”, Bennett looks back at his remarkable career taking the reader through not least some amazing relegation-scraps while sharing a few insights. For instance, how it felt to be called “that little coloured boy” by the co-commentator in the FA Cup-final in 1981 when playing for Manchester City.
“To be called a little coloured boy by a pundit was a double barrel. My name is quite easy, you know. It was a lack of respect for my parents and to the whole community. When you play in the cup final, everybody knows who's going into the final,” Dave Bennett still frowns when reminded of it.
He names the co-commentator in his book, and also names the aforementioned Glenn Hoddle as one clearly not swapping Christmas-cards with “Benno”.
“The less said about Hoddle the better,” Bennett maintains, when Tribalfootball tries to press him a little on the matter. He is more willing to talk about Alan Brazil, who was “great company on a night out”.
“Alan loved going racing with me and we used to go to Cheltenham all the time. One time he’d just signed for Manchester United and one evening, after having played a game, he got in his car, drove all the way to Manchester, picked up his cheque, drove back, stuck the cheque to his forehead and walked into the club,” Bennett laughs.
Still missing Cyrille Regis
He is fresh off a bit of walking football, “just giving a bit back to the community, you know”, when Tribalfootball caught up with him. So, he’s still involved with football, still follows the game closely and naturally it brought back a lot of memories, when Coventry reached the semifinal last season.
“It was a great occasion for the fans and the younger generation to feel the vibes, it united everyone more. It was great that it got everybody involved and it was recreating that atmosphere of when we won it,” says Bennett who went global himself after the win in 1987. Some bigger clubs came in for him, but he stayed with Coventry, where he’d flourished under the guidance of John Sillett.
“At Cardiff, Len Ashurst moved me out to the right wing to prevent me getting kicked and tackled. Then, when John came in at Coventry, I asked whether I could play up front. He acknowledged the relationship I had with Cyrille Regis, we did everything together and looked out for each other. Sillett thought that we could bring that onto the pitch and it seemed to just click,” Bennett recalls of his deceased “partner-in-crime”, stating; “I still miss him to this day”.
“Once he finished playing football, he became an agent. He'd never come to watch a game without me, he would always talk to me about what's going on, what the team is doing and everything. I miss him greatly because not only was he a friend, he was a gentleman and he was a great man to know and talk to.”
Bennett came through the academy at Manchester City but straight after featuring in the FA Cup-final in 1981 he was offloaded to Cardiff City in the second tier which, compared to football nowadays, seems bewildering.
“We didn't have agents back then to guide us so I went down thinking I weren't going to be playing at City who had just signed Trevor Francis to take up my place in the team. It worked in my favor in the end, as Cardiff gained promotion while Man City were relegated,” 'Benno' chuckles.
While with Cardiff, he joined forces with brother Gary, who later went on to become a Sunderland legend while Bennett is the Hall of Fame at Coventry City. Unusual in the football world, and the brothers loved their time together.
I didn’t fit the bill
“We looked after each other as well as playing together and we seemed to blossom. We didn't know it at the time, but we were breaking down barriers when we went to Cardiff who was a rugby union area. Once we were there the black community started coming to the games.
“There was a lot of animosity and racism down there towards black people, and it helped to have each other to handle the abuse. Just imagine; two black kids from the ghetto in Moss side, Manchester, ending up as a Hall of Famer and with a massive reputation in Sunderland. Along with the likes of Cyrille, John Barnes, Ricky Hill, we paved the way for others to follow, and it would be good for them to know what we had to go through.”
Even Hall of Famers can have a few regrets and Dave Bennett would have liked to have played in Europe following the FA Cup-final. English teams were banned after the Heysel catastrophe, preventing Coventry from seeing those famed European nights, though.
“I also think I deserved a call-up to the England squad. They came to watch me against Tottenham, but I didn't quite fit the bill. A lot of players were given a chance and we (at Coventry, ed.) were doing a lot better than them, but they got the call-ups.”
The book also hints a slight regret in Bennett for not achieving his full potential, be it footballing-wise or financially speaking.
“It didn’t help breaking my leg four times”, as he dryly states and you can read it all in “Benno”, which is out now with Pitch Publishing and available at assorted bookshops or right here.