In the hall of Jimmy Montgomery’s peaceful house in the Sunderland suburbs is a framed black-and-white photograph of the save in the 1973 FA Cup final for which he will forever be remembered.
It’s a simple picture, an iconic moment beautifully captured.
The players of Sunderland and Leeds are in classic football strips, free of clutter and sponsors’ logos. Long hair and black boots. Meanwhile a goalkeeper dives low into history to parry a header wearing a pair of woollen gloves that look like they could have come from a local garden centre.
‘I haven’t got those gloves anymore,’ Montgomery tells the Daily Mail from his seat on the sofa.
‘When we played in Lisbon (against Sporting) in the Cup Winners’ Cup the next season, I put them in the back of the net with my cap as I always did. And somebody stole them.
‘Ball boy? Cameraman? I have no idea. So that was one souvenir gone in a flash.
‘Not that it really mattered. I hardly wore them. When they were wet they were about as much use as a chocolate watch!’
Sunderland legend Jimmy Montgomery has fond memories of the club’s last European campaign in 1973-74 – apart from having his goalkeeper gloves stolen in Lisbon!
Montgomery has a framed photo of the save in the 1973 FA Cup final against Leeds for which he will forever be remembered
We are here on Wearside to talk, for once, not about that stunning double save that helped second-tier Sunderland win the Cup at Wembley 53 years ago, but about the European campaign that followed.
It was the club’s first foray into Europe and, until today, their last.
As Regis Le Bris’ impressive modern team face AZ Alkmaar in the Europa League tomorrow night, Montgomery will be in the stand that, since the start of last season, carries his name.
‘We played our first tie in Budapest behind the Iron Curtain and it was the exact same XI that had won the cup final,’ recalls Montgomery. ‘I don’t think that was sentiment. I think we deserved it.
‘These days the team will have a dossier on the opponents and take their own chef and staff with them.
‘We had our manager Bob Stokoe, his assistant and maybe the club secretary. That was it.
‘In terms of the opposition (Vasas Budapest) we didn’t know a thing about them apart from what the press men on the plane told us.
‘It took us for ever to get there and even longer to get back. But we won 2-0 and also beat them at home. Marvellous.
‘It ended for us in the next round at Sporting Lisbon. That was a strange night.
‘They had ball-boys throwing the balls on but when they did, the Lisbon players would throw them straight off again, sometimes straight into the crowd.
‘We looked at the ref and he just stared back at us. I guess it was time-wasting. But I have never seen anything like it before or since.’
Sunderland captain Bobby Kerr is held aloft by his team-mates, including Montgomery (fourth from right) after the 1-0 win over Leeds in 1973
Now, at the age of 82, Montgomery is revered to such a degree he literally has his name written throughout the modern Sunderland
Facing a shot from Newcastle’s Jim Scott in the Tyne-Wear derby at Roker Park in 1968
Montgomery made a record 627 appearances for his hometown club across 18 years. As a boy he would watch his team at Roker Park with his father. As an apprentice, he would later sweep the terraces and paint the seats.
Now, at the age of 82, he is revered to such a degree he literally has his name written throughout the modern Sunderland.
As well as the stand at the Stadium of Light, this year’s goalkeeping jerseys have his signature, number of appearances and even an outline of his famous save embossed in them.
‘It’s hard to believe,’ he says. ‘I am just a kid from down the road.’
Montgomery has served Sunderland as player, goalkeeping coach and worked at its centre of excellence.
‘I have actually been let go four times and that was hard,’ he says. ‘Different managers would want different things. So yeah I got kicked out.
‘But I kept getting invited back again!
‘I even had a year coaching at Newcastle with Kevin Keegan and, as hard as it is for Sunderland fans to hear, Pavel Srnicek was perhaps the best I worked with.’
A welcome visitor to Sunderland’s training ground whenever his health allows, Montgomery has talked football with the ever-respectful Le Bris and goalkeeping with current No 1 Robin Roefs.
‘They sometimes bring the goalkeepers over for a chat,’ he explains. ‘I think the young ones want to talk. That’s very humbling and typical of the club now.
Montgomery made a record 627 appearances for his hometown club across 18 years
Montgomery (second left) poses with the Cup alongside (from left) Ian Porterfield, Micky Horswill and Kerr
‘Robin is an excellent keeper, a brilliant keeper. Sometimes I just wish he wouldn’t try to play from the back so much. I’m not a great fan of it. I get wound up.
‘It’s a risk. I would much rather goalkeepers get it forward, push the team up, and start from there.
‘I’m a big believer in once the goalkeeper’s got the ball, he’s in charge of it. He does what he thinks right.
‘If he doesn’t want to play it short, he shouldn’t have to. Look at the Arsenal goalkeeper on Saturday. He dictated everything. He was fully in charge. I like that.’
If Montgomery was impressed with David Raya, he was less enamoured with Arsenal.
‘I have no time for them,’ he says. ‘Goodness I couldn’t watch that every week. What is that type of football?
‘Their manager is complaining like mad about giving the penalty away but if you’re going to get mixed up in that, it will go against you eventually.
‘It’s amazing what goes on at corners now. They don’t even look at the ball. We never grappled like that. I just knew that when the ball came over I was gonna get smashed.
‘Wyn Davies of Newcastle and good old Nat Lofthouse. Every time. Bang. There was no protection. You just had to be ready for it.’
At the end of his career, Montgomery spent a season at Nottingham Forest under Brian Clough.
‘I played with Brian and he was brilliant, though he knew it too,’ he smiles. ‘I was playing the day he broke his leg on Boxing Day in 1962. So I was chuffed he thought I was good enough all those years later to be under-study to Shilts (Peter Shilton).
‘I was in my mid-30s and coming towards the end. I never played but was on the bench when Forest won the European Cup in Madrid in 1980. I got a medal.’
Montgomery – who rates the great Pat Jennings as perhaps the best goalkeeper he has known – has a photo of himself with the European Cup and it feels strange to see him in another club’s colours.
‘I have no time for them,’ says Montgomery of Arsenal. ‘Goodness I couldn’t watch that every week. What is that type of football?
But it’s that black-and-white picture of his Wembley save that we return to.
The first effort – the one on the picture – was from Trevor Cherry. The follow-up from five yards from Peter Lorimer was struck so powerfully ITV commentator Brian Moore shouted ‘goal’ before it struck the underside of the bar.
Afterwards, it was the late Jimmy Hill who declared it had been the tips of Montgomery’s fingers that had touched it up on to the woodwork.
Montgomery’s favourite line is to say he wished he had caught the first shot so he wouldn’t have had to spend his life talking about the second.
‘But I don’t mean it,’ he smiles. ‘I love what it still means to people.
‘It was only when standing with my pint of milk afterwards that I realised the significance of it. They just kept showing it.
‘I was lucky it was on TV, mind. I had made one from a lad playing for Hull a few weeks before that was even better…’
