Dave Bennett has admitted that the Coventry City’s 1987 FA Cup Final victory over Tottenham Hotspur was revenge to him.
Speaking to the Coventry Observer’s Steve Carpenter as part of his wonderful FA Cup series, Bennett who is now heavily involved with the Coventry City Former Players Association, said: “I was one of the last players to go up and collect my winners’ medal because that game was revenge for me.
“I’d played against a few of those players in the 1981 FA Cup final so I made sure I shook all of their hands because it was revenge for me.
“Something had started many years ago and it took a few years to finish so it was an achievement in more ways than one for me.
“People go on about one game which was a classic cup final but we had a great season that year.
“The critics say we were the underdogs because Tottenham had all these international players and I remember an article in the paper who said the only people who would know us on the day were our parents and our families, but we weren’t afraid of them.
“The M6 was jammed pack but we were allowed to drive back on the hard shoulder. We had a few drinks that night but we couldn’t get drunk because we were still on a high.
“Brian Burrows missed the game through injury and one thing I will always remember was the following morning on the Sunday we got together on the coach with the cup and got Buggsy out of hospital and got him to come round on the bus with us.
“That shows the camaraderie we had in the side. We would not leave him out, he was part of the team. We were a team off the park and a team on the park.”
More on this; http://www.coventryobserver.co.uk/2012/03/21/sport-Dave-Bennett---‘87-victory-was-sweet-after-the-agony--33214.html#.