It is another event from FA Cup history that is almost unimaginable now. The last moments of the 1979 final may have been deflating for Manchester United, but the homecoming was anything but. The team had come back from being 2-0 down as late as the 86th minute, to make it 2-2, only for Alan Sunderland to score a winner for Arsenal in the 89th. Not that you’d have guessed it from the scenes in Manchester.
“Even in ‘79, when we got back to the train station, we got an open-top bus to the city centre,” former United goalkeeper Gary Bailey says. “I think over 400,000 people lined the streets. It was incredible.”
