How The 1980 FA Cup Final Between West Ham and Arsenal Changed Football

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

The wind blows through his hair. He feels the warm breeze rushing past his face. The crowd roars in anticipation as he sprints over the soft, green grass. Paul Allen – the youngest player to grace the FA Cup Final – has just been sent through on goal with two minutes of the game remaining. Dribbling brilliantly past the retreating Graham Rix, he sees the empty expanse of the penalty box open up before him. With only 'keeper Pat Jennings left to beat, the fleet-footed 17-year-old looks set to score a goal that will seal West Ham's win, and be remembered in the annals of football folklore forevermore.

Instead, Allen suddenly find himself tumbling to the turf. The earth yields as he slams into the ground face first. The excited roar from the stands turns to a deafening cry of anguish and rage. Allen is left crumpled, dazed and confused.

He has just been slashed down from behind, deliberately chopped to the floor by a stretching, freckled leg. That leg belongs to a grizzled Scotsman, Arsenal defender Willie Young. He gets up, pats Allen on the head, and receives his yellow card with an apologetic shrug. The commentators are disgusted, the fans are disgusted, and Young gets on with the game regardless.

Though second-division West Ham held on to win the 1980 cup final 1-0, the match was defined by Young's tackle. The sight of a bouffanted brute hacking down a fresh-faced future star became iconic, a snapshot of English football at its ugliest. Instead of Allen's goal being remembered for all time, it was the boundless cynicism of that brazen last-man foul which went down in history. The unfairness of it was plain for all to see – and 100,000 fans had seen it from the terraces of Old Wembley.

It was ludicrous, really. Here was a jaded, world-weary veteran of the game, nonchalantly scything down a youngster's hopes and dreams. Young was a wrecking ball, and he had just delivered a crushing blow to Paul Allen's innocence. Allen wept as he received his winner's medal, and descended the Wembley steps to a chorus of commiseration from the support.

If the incident was ludicrous, it was also cruel. It certainly wasn't the first time that a player had been flagrantly denied a goalscoring opportunity, but Young's tackle captured football's collective imagination. It was so mean-spirited, so glaringly intentional, that the authorities could not help but to sit up and take notice. Unbeknownst to Arsenal's red-headed lummox, he was about to change the rules of the sport.

In the aftermath of the final, there was a huge furore about the lack of punishment for Young. Supporters, columnists and commentators called for harsher sanctions for such fouls, and football's governing body took note. In 1982, the Football League recommended that any infringement which might deny an attacking player an obvious scoring opportunity should be deemed serious foul play by referees, and therefore merit a red card. This soon became the norm, and so the idea of a professional foul was defined in the Laws of the Game.

Hear John Motson's take on the incident at 3:00

While Willie Young only spent one more year at Arsenal before winding down his career in the lower leagues, his legacy was a lasting one. In hacking down Paul Allen, he made sure that future generations would never see such unsportsmanlike behaviour given so lenient a sanction. Every lumbering centre-back who has seen red for bringing down a goalbound opponent has Young to blame. In the dying moments of the 1980 FA Cup Final, he single-handedly ruined professional misdemeanour for everyone.

He committed one of the most blatant fouls the world has ever seen – and inadvertently made football fairer as a result.

@W_F_Magee