The Three Greatest FA Cup Finals Ever Played
Published: 13/05/2026 | By: Alex Courbat
A love letter to the FA Cup at its absolute best. From Stanley Matthews’ immortal comeback in 1953, to Arsenal and Manchester United’s breathless five-minute madness in 1979, to the emotional weight of Liverpool vs Everton after Hillsborough in 1989 – three finals that proved this competition can deliver drama no other tournament can touch. Ahead of Chelsea vs City at Wembley, this is a reminder of why the FA Cup still matters.
The FA Cup is football's oldest romance. Not the sleekest competition, not the richest, not always the one with the deepest quality on show. But it has an ability to produce moments that lodge themselves permanently in your chest, moments you describe to people who weren't even born yet.
This Saturday, Chelsea and Manchester City head to Wembley to write the latest chapter. City are chasing history, becoming the first side ever to appear in four consecutive finals. Chelsea are hunting their ninth title and their first since 2018. It's a genuinely mouth-watering occasion. But before that unfolds, it's worth remembering what the FA Cup can really do when the moment is right. Here are three finals that showed exactly that.
The Matthews Final, 1953: Blackpool 4-3 Bolton Wanderers
Let's start at the very peak of the mountain. The 2nd of May 1953. Wembley Stadium, 100,000 people packed in under a grey English sky, and somewhere in the tunnel, Stanley Matthews is waiting for his last chance.
Matthews was 38 years old. Thirty-eight. He'd already played in two FA Cup finals and lost both of them. In 1948, Manchester United had beaten his Blackpool side 4-2. In 1951, Newcastle United had brushed them aside 2-0. The feeling that this brilliant, twisting, bewildering winger was somehow cursed, somehow destined to go without the one medal that kept eluding him, had become one of football's great narratives. The whole country was pulling for him. He was the most beloved player in England, arguably the most famous sportsman alive in Britain, and yet here he was, heading into another final with history bearing down on him.
Bolton Wanderers were the opponents, a team built around the thunderous Nat Lofthouse, a centre-forward who ran at defenders like they'd personally offended him. Wanderers had the better of the first half and by the 55th minute, they were 3-1 ahead. Three goals to one. Blackpool were crumbling. You could feel the whole of England looking away, not wanting to watch Matthews trudge off without his medal for a third time.
And then something extraordinary started to happen.
Matthews got the ball on the right wing, dropped his shoulder, and the Bolton left-back went the wrong way. Again and again, like a man who'd found a cheat code for football, Matthews cut through the Bolton defence and began delivering crosses that simply had to be converted. Stan Mortensen, Blackpool's brilliant centre-forward, pulled one back to make it 3-2. The crowd were on their feet. Mortensen then smashed in a free-kick with barely twenty minutes left to level it at 3-3, completing what remains the only hat-trick ever scored in an FA Cup final at Wembley. The noise inside that old stadium must have been something else entirely.
But this story needed its proper ending. With two minutes left on the clock, Matthews got the ball once more, beat his man with ridiculous ease, pulled the ball back to Bill Perry on the edge of the area, and Perry buried it. 4-3. Blackpool. The final whistle blew and England just erupted.
The papers the next day called it the Matthews Final, even though Mortensen had scored a hat-trick. That tells you everything. Matthews finally had his medal at 38, in possibly the most dramatic final the competition has ever seen, and the whole nation went home happy. Seventy-odd years on and there still hasn't been a story quite like it.
The Five Minute Final, 1979: Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United
You know those moments in football where you look at the clock, look at the scoreline, and think it's all over? The 1979 FA Cup final is what happens when you dare to look away.
The 12th of May, 1979. Wembley is absolutely rammed and Arsenal are cruising. They've been the better side all afternoon, controlled the game with a quiet authority, and goals from Brian Talbot and Frank Stapleton have given them a 2-0 lead that looks absolutely unassailable. Manchester United are toothless. Nothing is happening. Terry Neill's Arsenal side are composed, confident, and frankly a bit boring, which is no criticism when you're winning an FA Cup final.
Then comes the 86th minute.
Gordon McQueen, United's big Scottish centre-half, bundled the ball into the Arsenal net and suddenly Wembley had a pulse again. 2-1. Fine, all right, but there's barely any time left, Arsenal will see this out, they'll just keep the ball and... Sammy McIlroy got it. Two minutes after McQueen's goal, the Northern Irish midfielder picked up the ball, drifted past two challenges, and slotted it home with a coolness that seemed completely inappropriate given the circumstances. Two-two. In the 88th minute. United were level and Wembley had lost its mind.
The United fans were in absolute delirium. They'd done the impossible. They'd come back from two goals down with the clock running out and now they were heading for extra time and who knows, maybe this was destiny, maybe the momentum had completely swung and...
Alan Sunderland.
One minute. One minute was all it took. Arsenal broke forward, Liam Brady drove into the United half with that lovely, languid left foot of his, slipped it wide to Graham Rix, Rix crossed it, and there was Sunderland arriving at the far post to turn it in. Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United. The 89th minute. Sunderland ran to the corner with his arms spread wide and that image, that pure expression of disbelief and joy, became one of the defining photographs in the competition's history.
United had gone from 2-0 down to 2-2 in two minutes and then conceded in the next. The whole thing happened in the space of three minutes. The Five Minute Final. No football match has ever swung so violently in so little time, and if you go back and watch it now, you will sit there rigid for those last few minutes regardless of how many times you've seen it. It still works. It always will.
The Merseyside Final, 1989: Liverpool 3-2 Everton (AET)
This one is different to the other two. This one carries weight that goes far beyond football.
The 20th of May 1989. Liverpool versus Everton. The first all-Merseyside FA Cup final in history. What should have been a joyous occasion for a whole city had become something far more layered, far more complex and far more moving, because just thirty-five days earlier, 97 Liverpool fans had died at Hillsborough. The city was still in its grief. Football had barely felt like the right thing to be talking about, and yet here was Liverpool, chasing the Double, with an entire city watching and feeling things that are very hard to put into words.
Kenny Dalglish had kept his team together through those devastating weeks. Everton, their neighbours, their rivals, their family in a city that understood exactly what Hillsborough had taken from everybody, were the opponents. The Wembley crowd that day was unlike any you'll witness. It was noisy and passionate and full of colour but there was something underneath all of it, something solemn, something that made the occasion feel sacred.
The game itself was electric. John Aldridge, who had barely put a foot wrong all season, gave Liverpool the lead after just four minutes, darting onto a pass and finishing with that calm, practiced confidence of his. For large stretches it looked like that might be enough. Then, with the clock running out, Everton's Stuart McCall, a young Yorkshireman who'd barely had a look in all game, popped up in the 90th minute to level it. Extra time.
Ian Rush came off the bench. Rush, who had scored in every FA Cup final he'd ever played in for Liverpool. The man was basically a force of nature at Wembley. Sure enough, in the 104th minute, he put Liverpool back in front. McCall, extraordinary in his refusal to give up, answered again almost immediately to make it 2-2. The ground was a wall of noise.
And then Rush did it again. 118th minute. He met a cross at the back post and guided it home with the kind of composure that only the very best players possess when it matters most. Three-two. Liverpool were champions of the cup. Rush had become the first substitute in history to score twice in an FA Cup final.
The final whistle brought tears. Not just from the players and the families, but from people who just understood what this meant. Liverpool had won the FA Cup in the most dramatic possible fashion, in a city that had been through unimaginable pain, against their closest rivals who played the game with total honour and dignity throughout. There was no hatred that afternoon, no spite. Just two teams from one city, playing their hearts out, creating something that transcended sport.
You'll see plenty of finals with better football. You'll see finals with more outrageous scorelines and more famous names. But for sheer emotional weight, for the feeling that what was happening on that pitch actually mattered in ways that football usually doesn't quite reach, the 1989 Merseyside Final stands alone.
Three finals. Three completely different kinds of drama.
A nation willing one man to his medal. A game that collapsed and rebuilt itself in the space of a heartbeat. A city playing football while it grieved. The FA Cup has been doing this for over 150 years and it shows absolutely no sign of stopping.
So when Chelsea and City walk out at Wembley on Saturday afternoon, just remember: nobody has a clue what's coming. That's the whole point. That's always been the whole point.
