After the victory against Bradford City in the quarter finals a month earlier, Southampton were drawn against Crystal Palace in the semi's to be played at Stamford Bridge, but before a ticket was sold Lawrie McMenemy had gained a sneaky advantage on the Eagles.

On the Monday lunchtime after the win at Valley Parade, across the city, all ears were to transistor radio's for the draw for the semi finals, the other 3 clubs were Manchester United or Wolves, Utd who were in the running for the Division 1 title and would finish 3rd or relegation threatened Wolves, Derby County who were the current League Champions and were still in the running themselves and would eventually finish 4th and 3rd Division Crystal Palace who would finish 5th in that division, in the days before play offs.

The wish of every Saints fan was to get to Wembley and then worry about who we were playing, so all the talk in the two days since the win over Bradford was get Crystal Palace and get a better chance of reaching the final.

I was in a classroom at Redbridge school, it was known that someone at the back had a transistor and as the time of the draw approached, even the teacher knew that no one was concentrating.

Silence descended, no one could hear the draw bar one person and he suddenly erupted, "We've got Palace" and a massive cheer went up, you could here the cheers from the other classrooms resonating down the corridors, our teacher calmy said, right we all know who they have got, back to work.

This situation was being repeated across the city from the Southampton dressing room were the players had gathered, to factories and offices across the City,

Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty a controversial figure quipped "This is the first time the FA Cup Final will be played at Hillsborough" arrogance from Manchester United is not a modern day invention.

But this is where Lawrie McMenemy got in quickly, he knew that the Shed End at Chelsea was the noisy end of the ground, as it had a roof albeit fairly small hence the nickname Shed End, he got on to the FA and secured that end for Saints fans, it was the biggest end in the soulless bowl that was Stamford Bridge back then as the pitch was surrounded by a greyhound track.

Palace had more seats in their allocation and we had more standing terraced tickets and it was the standing fans who made the noise back then.

Palace themselves had a flamboyant manager in Malcolm Allison who had worn his lucky Fedora hat throughout his club's cup run and his hat was taking up much of the media attention, which wasn't half as much as the other tie was receiving, after United dispensed of Derby in their replay.

Docherty & Allison were making all the headlines, but McMenemy was staying low key, not making the brash announcements of the other two and in the week before the game he took his squad to a hotel at Frinton on Sea in Essex, well away from the media and also Southampton itself were FA Cup fever had taken hold.

I was going up on one of a fleet of coaches departing from the old coach station in Bedford Place, the A34 and then the M3 were a long trail of coaches and cars on the morning of the game.

It is weird to write that exactly 50 years to the minute as I write this I was sat on that coach, with my lucky Saints scarf, lucky Mike Channon T shirt on under my lucky black jumper with two horizontal stripes across the front.

I looked just like thousands of other football fans across the country back then from my Dr Marten boots upwards.

We arrived at Stamford Bridge fairly early around noon and made our way up to the ground and were soon in the Shed End, joking that we had "Taken" it as was a fad in those days to go into the home teams end and take it over, luckily there were few Chelsea fans present to stop us.

For an hour or so it was mainly youngsters like my 14 year old self in the ground, singing songs at our Crystal Palace equivalents who responded in kind, all the older Saints fans were not yet in the ground, mainly in the pubs behind the Shed end.

The first real bit of excitement came when the team came on to the pitch and the noise vamped up, at our end there was a mini pitch invasion, at Redbridge school some of the lads in an art class had made a banner using an old bed sheet and paint and had stated that they were going to hang it on the fence that was the other side of the dog track.

The team coming out was the signal and dozens of young Saints fans joined them to hang the banner on said fence, it felt like a moral victory we had got one over Palace before the game had started.

In the Saint's dressing room we all assumed the team would be as normal, but there was an issue, this is where Hugh Fisher put the team before his own personal glory, on the face of it Fisher looked fit and had trained, but inside he knew he had a strain, he would have played and if he had got through the game at Wembley as well.

But he was a professional, he told Lawrie McMenemy that he wasn't 100% and he therefore dropped to the bench and Paul Gilchrist came into the side, this was the days of only one sub, they were only used for injuries and only tactically in the last minutes of a game, it would cost Fisher dearly as Gilchrist would keep his place for the final and Hugh would watch both games from the bench without getting on.

When the players came out the Shed end was a mass of Red & White and noise, McMenemy's early request had paid off and the official 23,500 allocation each in the crowd of of 52,810 saw Saints with the upper hand, Palace fans in the wide open expanse of the North Stand made noise but it blew into the wind and you could barely hear it, no fault of the Eagles fans, but we had the advantage of that roof in the Shed.

If Saints fans thought that playing a team a division below them would make the result a doddle, then they would be wrong, what emerged was a tense nervous game played in a swirling wind across that soulless bowl.

Half time arrived with not too much in the way of excitement.

The second half started with Saints kicking towards their own fans in the Shed, it was still a scrappy game and not a great one for the neutrals, we as fans were still biting our nails in the knowledge this was the FA Cup and anything could happen, but on reflection Saints were now getting the upper hand and starting to look dangerous.

But the game very much swung in our favour in the 74th minute, Peter Osgood passed to Paul Gilchrist, who took a couple of steps and then let fly from 25 yards, his low hard shot flying past the Palace keeper.

In his after match comments Mike Channon laughed as he claimed that the shot had brushed his sock, so it was his goal, but he was tongue in cheek.

The Shed end was a seething mass of celebrating Red & White, but before anyone had really gathered their thoughts came the second goal, David Peach played a long pass to Mike Channon (It was usually Mike back then and not Mick) he was brought down by Jeffries and the referee pointed to the spot.

Replays show that the foul was just outside the box, but no VAR back then.

The question was who would take the penalty, Channon himself had been the regular taker, but he had missed his second spot kick of the season two weeks earlier, Jim McCalliog had also had a go and missed, so who would take it ?

The answer was David Peach whose task was to make sure it wasn't 4 misses in a row for the team in what would be his first penalty, Peach himself admits it wasn't his best penalty, he blasted it and the keeper nearly stopped in, but it went in and the Southampton fans in the ground, a clear majority went wild.

Palace were now a spent force, you could see they were finished at two down, it should have been three, Channon had a one on one with five minutes to go, but shot wide, but the team were now showing that the experience they had would see them through.

The final whistle sparked wild celebrations, getting to Wembley back then for football clubs was basically two chances, the FA Cup & League Cup, plus a charity shield appearance, it meant something, you didn't get there for play offs, semi finals or Johnston Paint Trophies, very few fans actually saw their team play at Wembley back then and we were now going to be one of them.

This was going to be our first visit, indeed we had only been in the semi finals before this game, once since 1927 and our two previous appearances in the final had been pre Wembley in 1900 & 1902.

The celebrations started in the Shed End and I watched as grown men cried and everyone cheered and sang, back then teams acknowledging the fans was not a done thing in every game and I think this was perhaps the first time I had seen this happen as the team ran towards the Shed to take the acclaim.

The streets back to the road where the coaches were parked were full of singing Saints fans in Red & White, I can't remember any Palace fans, but given this was in a time of mass fighting at football games, there was no trouble, they went off home.

The scenes in the dressing room were just as jubilant as shown in the picture below.

On the coach home snaking out of London we were a group of 14 year olds on the back seat singing our heads off, even the coach driver was elated, stop for a pint he asked the coach ?

The answer was of course yes and he took the A3 back and then to the Windmill pub in Four Marks, just outside Alresford.

The pub was full of jubilant Saints supporters and the landlord didn't seem to care that a few 14 year olds had a pint or two.

Another singsong back to Southampton followed by the bus back to Millbrook, now all talk would only be about one thing, Wembley !

With grateful thanks to Duncan Holley & Gary Chalk without whom & colleagues in Hagiology Publishing the history of Southampton FC would be criminally overlooked and undocumented.

Duncan's own website saintsplayers.co.uk is the most comprehensive overview of Saints players & the club on the internet, if you are a Saints supporter and haven't visited it then you are missing a wealth of information and photos from the distant past right up to the present day

All Photos Via Reuters