The 1977 Football League Cup Final was played between Aston Villa and Everton and required three games to decide the winner, the only time this has happened in the League Cup. The first match took place at Wembley Stadium on 12 March and the game ended in a dull goalless draw. The first replay on 16 March was only marginally better as the teams again played out a draw, this time at Hillsborough the home of Sheffield Wednesday. Both teams at least managed a goal apiece on this occasion although both were scored by Everton players with Bob Latchford's last-minute equaliser nullifying Roger Kenyon's earlier own-goal.
The second replay took place at Old Trafford on 13 April. The game is probably best remembered for a 40-yard goal from Villa centre-half Chris Nicholl, and in a 2010 poll this was voted in the Top 25 of all-time League Cup moments. Brian Little scored his second of the match in dramatic fashion during the dying seconds of the game to give Villa a 3–2 victory. Mick Lyons and Bob Latchford scored for Everton.
Famous quotes containing the words football, league, cup and/or final:
“...I’m not money hungry.... People who are rich want to be richer, but what’s the difference? You can’t take it with you. The toys get different, that’s all. The rich guys buy a football team, the poor guys buy a football. It’s all relative.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“Stereotypes fall in the face of humanity. You toodle along, thinking that all gay men wear leather after dark and should never, ever be permitted around a Little League field. And then one day your best friend from college, the one your kids adore, comes out to you.”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)
“I worked as a waitress till I was fired because I dumped a cup of hot coffee in the lap of a half-drunk guy who was pinching my butt.”
—Juli Loesch (b. c. 1953)
“The self-explorer, whether he wants to or not, becomes the explorer of everything else. He learns to see himself, but suddenly, provided he was honest, all the rest appears, and it is as rich as he was, and, as a final crowning, richer.”
—Elias Canetti (b. 1905)