Eddie Howe’s Newcastle players will be aching to achieve a call up to this XI made up from players who helped secure their club a maiden victory in the League Cup…
Newcastle United’s name remains absent from the list of League Cup winners and this year will mark the Magpies reaching the final of the competition for just the second time since its conception over 60 years ago. Eddie Howe’s men will go down in history on Tyneside if they can avenge that 1976 defeat to Manchester City and bring some long awaited silverware to St James’ Park. Here’s an XI made up from players who helped secure their club a maiden victory in the League Cup…
Goalkeeper: Gordon Banks.
World Cup winner Banks only picked up two domestic trophies during his career, both league cups, both with different clubs and both first time wins for those clubs in the competition. Banks kept goal for Leicester in the 1964 final, with a 4-3 aggregate victory over Stoke City and eight years later he went on to lift the cup with the Potters, in a 2-1 win against Chelsea at Wembley. If you fancy a goalkeeper challenge, try naming the ‘keeper who played for Chelsea that day and had already helped the Blues win the League Cup for the first time in 1965.
Right-back: Viv Anderson.
Just like Banks, Anderson was involved in two first time League Cup triumphs during his career. The England international lined-up for Nottingham Forest in the 1978 final, as Brian Clough’s men beat Liverpool 1-0 and he helped the club retain the trophy a year later. In 1987, Anderson was an Arsenal player and he was part of the side that brought the cup to Highbury for the first time, with Liverpool once again the vanquished opponents.
Centre-back: Alan Hansen.
Whilst Liverpool may have been on the losing end of League Cup finals in ’78 and ’87, the Reds did manage to win the competition four times in between those defeats. The first of those came in 1981, with a 2-1 win over West Ham in a replay at Villa Park, after the first match had ended in a draw at Wembley. Scottish defender Hansen scored the winner and set the Merseyside club on their way to picking up number one of a record nine League Cup triumphs.
Centre-back: Gareth Southgate.
1997 was certainly an annus horribilis for Middlesbrough fans, with the side getting relegated from the Premier League after a points deduction, losing the club’s first ever FA Cup Final AND first ever League Cup Final. Football’s oldest cup competition…
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