1991 FA Cup Final: Tottenham Hotspur 2-1 Nottingham Forest
The Gazza Final

The footage

▶

1991

The match report

The 1991 FA Cup final was the 110th final of the competition and a meeting of two mid-table First Division sides, which made it an unlikely crossroads. Tottenham had struggled in the league and were more than 20 million pounds in debt, surviving on the goals of Paul Gascoigne through the cup run. Nottingham Forest were appearing in their first FA Cup final since winning it in 1959, and it was the only final Brian Clough ever reached: the FA Cup was the one major domestic trophy that eluded him.[1][3][6]

Both clubs had beaten a leading side to get here. Tottenham's route took them past Arsenal in a Wembley semi-final settled 3-1 by a stunning Gascoigne free kick and two Gary Lineker goals, while Forest overwhelmed West Ham United 4-0 at Villa Park after three earlier rounds had gone to replays. Before the final, Clough and Terry Venables walked out onto the pitch hand in hand, at Clough's instigation.[4][6][12][11][13]

The match was shaped in its opening minutes. Gascoigne, given valium on the eve of the game to calm him down, caught Garry Parker in the chest with a high follow-through and escaped with a lecture. Minutes later he scythed down Gary Charles on the edge of his own box, rupturing a cruciate ligament in his right knee as he made the challenge. Again he was not booked. Stuart Pearce curled the resulting free kick in to give Forest the lead in the 16th minute, and seconds after the restart Gascoigne collapsed and was carried off, Nayim replacing him. It was his last match for Tottenham, and the injury kept him out of the game for a year and cost him his place at Euro 1992.[5][12][10][15][3]

Tottenham's afternoon got worse before it got better. Lineker had a goal disallowed for offside after 25 minutes, and five minutes later he was brought down by Mark Crossley in the box. Lineker struck the penalty firmly to the goalkeeper's left but Crossley read it and pushed the ball away, becoming only the second goalkeeper to save a penalty in a Wembley FA Cup final, after Dave Beasant for Wimbledon in 1988.[6][12][10]

Ten minutes into the second half Tottenham were level. Nayim cushioned Erik Thorstvedt's long kick into Paul Allen's path and Allen's pass sent Paul Stewart into the right of the box, where he drilled a low shot across Crossley and into the corner. The match went to extra time, with Clough pointedly remaining on the bench before the restart while his assistant Archie Gemmill addressed the Forest players. Substitute Paul Walsh then looped a header against the Forest bar, and from Nayim's corner Stewart flicked on at the near post; as Gary Mabbutt closed in at the far post, Des Walker stretched to beat him to the ball and headed past his own goalkeeper in the 94th minute. Inside the ground the tannoy announced Mabbutt as the scorer.[12][10][6]

Tottenham saw out the remaining minutes to win 2-1, and Mabbutt lifted the trophy four years after his own goal had handed Coventry City the 1987 final. Gascoigne watched his team-mates climb the Wembley steps from a hospital bed. The win made Tottenham the first club to win the FA Cup eight times, a record since passed by Arsenal and Manchester United, and it remains their last appearance in the final. Forest, beaten finalists in Clough's only shot at the trophy, have never been back either, and within two years they were relegated and Clough had retired.[5][6][11][7]

How the match unfolded

1. 2'Paul Gascoigne, pumped up beyond control, follows through with his foot up and catches Garry Parker in the chest. Referee Roger Milford lets him off with a lecture.[5][12]
2. 15'Gascoigne scythes down Gary Charles as the Forest defender runs across the face of the Tottenham penalty area. Again Milford awards only a free kick. Gascoigne has wrecked his right knee making the tackle, but after treatment he stands up to join the defensive wall.[5][12][10]
3. 16'Stuart Pearce curls the free kick into the net to give Nottingham Forest the lead.[12][10][13]
4. 17'Gascoigne crumples to the turf seconds after the restart and is carried off on a stretcher. Nayim comes on to replace him. It is later revealed that he has torn his cruciate ligaments.[5][12][10]
5. 25'Gary Lineker has a goal disallowed for offside.[6][12][10]
6. 30'Lineker is brought down in the box by Mark Crossley and takes the penalty himself, placing it to the goalkeeper's left. Crossley dives that way and saves it, becoming only the second goalkeeper to save a penalty in a Wembley FA Cup final, after Dave Beasant in 1988.[1][6][12]
7. 55'Nayim cushions an Erik Thorstvedt kick into the path of Paul Allen, who slides Paul Stewart into the right-hand side of the box. Stewart drills a low shot past Crossley to level the match.[12][10][3]
8. 62'Forest make their first change: Steve Hodge replaces Ian Woan.[1][12]
9. 82'Tottenham send on Paul Walsh for Vinny Samways.[1][12]
10. full-timeThe final ends 1-1 after 90 minutes and moves into extra time. Brian Clough remains on the bench before the restart, leaving his assistant Archie Gemmill to rouse the Forest players.[1][6]
11. 94'Walsh loops a header over Crossley and against the bar; Pearce puts the rebound behind. From Nayim's corner Stewart flicks on at the near post and, as Gary Mabbutt runs in at the far post, Des Walker beats him to the ball and heads past his own goalkeeper. Tottenham lead for the first time.[12][10][3]
12. 108'Forest's second change sees Brian Laws replace Lee Glover.[1][12]
13. after extra timeTottenham hold out to win 2-1 and lift the FA Cup for a record eighth time. Gascoigne watches his team-mates climb the Wembley steps from a hospital bed.[1][5][12]

Match facts

Date

Saturday 18 May 1991

Venue

Wembley Stadium, London

Attendance

80,000The official attendance recorded across the standard match reports.[12][10][3]

Referee

Roger Milford (Somerset)[12][3]

Scorers

Stuart Pearce 16'
Paul Stewart 55'
Des Walker 94'[4][7][12][10]

Half-time

0-1

Competition

1990-91 FA Cup

Where they played

Both sides as they lined up. Choose any player to read what they did in this final.

Select a shirt for that player's note.

Route to the final

Line-ups

Trivia and detail

• Tottenham were more than 20 million pounds in debt during the cup run and, by some accounts, teetered on the edge of going out of business; Alan Sugar's takeover that summer stabilised the club.[1][3]
• Tottenham's semi-final against Arsenal was the first FA Cup semi-final ever played at Wembley, and Gascoigne opened the scoring with a long-range free kick after five minutes on the way to a 3-1 win.[9][11][13]
• Mark Crossley was already famous as the only goalkeeper to have saved a Matt Le Tissier penalty before he stopped Gary Lineker's spot-kick in the final.[6]
• The final saw the first appearance of the long, baggy style of shorts, part of Tottenham's new Umbro kit that Terry Venables helped design. Initially ridiculed, the style spread through English and world football within a few years.[3][14]
• Nigel Jemson, whose goal had won Forest the previous season's League Cup final and who scored a hat-trick in an earlier cup round against Southampton, was left out of the final squad entirely.[6]
• Forest's 19-year-old midfielder Roy Keane received the loudest cheer of any Forest player before kick-off, louder even than Stuart Pearce or Nigel Clough.[6]
• Gascoigne revealed that he was given valium on the eve of the final to calm him down, and that he had recorded a coaching video for children on tackling properly only a week before the challenge that wrecked his knee.[5]

How well do you know the 1991 final?

Five questions. Every answer is sourced from the material on this page.

1. Who gave Nottingham Forest the lead in the 1991 FA Cup final?

   Stuart PearceRoy KeaneNigel CloughGary Charles
   Answer

   Stuart Pearce. Pearce curled in the free kick awarded for Paul Gascoigne's foul on Gary Charles in the 16th minute.[12][3]

2. Why did Paul Gascoigne leave the pitch on a stretcher in the first half?

   He ruptured a cruciate ligament making the tackle on Gary CharlesHe was sent off for the tackle on Garry ParkerHe was injured celebrating the equaliserHe collided with his own goalkeeper
   Answer

   He ruptured a cruciate ligament making the tackle on Gary Charles. The challenge that conceded Forest's free kick wrecked Gascoigne's right knee; he collapsed seconds after the restart and was carried off.[5][12][10]

3. What happened when Gary Lineker took a first-half penalty?

   Mark Crossley dived to his left and saved itHe scored to make it 1-1He hit the postPaul Stewart took it instead
   Answer

   Mark Crossley dived to his left and saved it. Crossley read Lineker's firmly struck penalty and pushed it away, only the second penalty save in a Wembley FA Cup final after Dave Beasant's in 1988.[6][12]

4. How was the winning goal scored?

   Des Walker headed Paul Stewart's flick-on past his own goalkeeperGary Lineker scored in extra timeGary Mabbutt headed in a cornerPaul Walsh's header crossed the line off the bar
   Answer

   Des Walker headed Paul Stewart's flick-on past his own goalkeeper. In the 94th minute Walker stretched to beat Mabbutt to Stewart's flick-on from Nayim's corner and diverted the ball past Mark Crossley for an own goal.[12][10][3]

5. What did the victory mean for Tottenham's place in FA Cup history?

   They became the first club to win the FA Cup eight timesThey won their first FA CupThey completed the League and Cup DoubleThey qualified for the European Cup for the first time
   Answer

   They became the first club to win the FA Cup eight times. The win was Tottenham's eighth, a record at the time, though Arsenal and Manchester United have since passed it.[7][4]

What is not settled

Honesty matters more than tidiness. These details are contested or unrecorded, and we have not guessed at them:

• Goal minutes differ between sources. Wikipedia and Fandom record Pearce 16, Stewart 55 and Walker 94; worldfootball.net records Pearce in the 15th minute and Stewart in the 53rd. We follow the 16/55/94 reading used by the majority of match reports, which is also the reading given by fa-cupfinals.co.uk.
• Substitution minutes vary by a minute between records: fa-cupfinals.co.uk records Nayim on in the 18th minute, Walsh in the 81st, Hodge in the 61st and Laws in the 109th. We record the 17/82/62/108 readings used elsewhere.
• The referee's county is given as Somerset by the main match records, but the 1990-91 FA Cup season article says Bristol and the fa-cupfinals.co.uk match page says Gloucestershire. We record Somerset.
• The fee for Gascoigne's move to Lazio is reported as 5.5 million pounds in the BBC's 2011 retrospective and 6 million pounds elsewhere. The transfer, agreed before the final, was completed in the summer of 1992.
• The positional records of the final amount to a 4-5-1 for Tottenham with Paul Stewart in midfield, but many accounts describe Stewart as a second striker alongside Lineker, which would read as 4-4-2. We draw the 4-5-1 the match records support.
• Whether the offside call that ruled out Gary Lineker's first-half goal was correct is disputed; These Football Times calls it an erroneous decision. We record only that the goal was disallowed.
• The exact minute of Gascoigne's foul on Gary Charles is not stated in the written reports; the free kick it produced was scored in the 15th or 16th minute, and we place the tackle accordingly.

How we know

Every claim on this page is tied to a numbered source below. These are the contemporary records behind it, each one fetched and matched word for word before publication rather than taken on trust:

• The FA official list of FA Cup finals · The Football Association
• Official club match archive: FA Cup final, 18 May 1991, with team line-up and attendance · Tottenham Hotspur FC
• Official club feature on the 1991 cup run, with Gary Mabbutt, David Howells and Paul Allen · Tottenham Hotspur FC
• The FA, 13 February 2014; lists Gascoigne's 1991 semi-final free kick and Pearce's 1991 final free kick · The Football Association

Where a primary record and a modern account disagree, we show both rather than choosing the tidier number.

Sources

1. 1991 FA Cup final · Wikipedia
2. 1990-91 FA Cup · Wikipedia
3. 1991 FA Cup Final · Football Wiki (Fandom)
4. England FA Challenge Cup 1990-91 · Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation
5. Gazza's moment of madness - 20 years on · BBC Sport
6. The 1991 FA Cup final: the day two decades collided and English football changed its outlook · These Football Times
7. FA Cup Finals - the winners' list · The Football Association
8. Gazza's moment of madness in 1991 FA Cup final · Belfast News Letter
9. Tottenham Hotspur 1991 FA Cup Final Retro Shirt · Score Draw
10. Spurs v Forest, 1991 · Tottenham Hotspur FC
11. 1991 - 25 years on · Tottenham Hotspur FC
12. 1991 FA Cup Final: Tottenham Hotspur vs Nottingham Forest · FA Cup Finals (fa-cupfinals.co.uk)
13. TheFA.com's top ten FA Cup free-kicks from Gazza to Oscar · The Football Association
14. A History of Football Kit Design in England and Scotland, Part 9: The Designers' Playground (1990-1999) · Historical Football Kits
15. Paul Gascoigne should have had two reds - rewatching the 1991 FA Cup final with a Premier League referee · The Times

Elsewhere in the encyclopedia

Other finals involving these clubs

• 1987 Tottenham Hotspur: Coventry City 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur

Other finals at Wembley Stadium

• 1923 Bolton Wanderers 2-0 West Ham United
• 1953 Blackpool 4-3 Bolton Wanderers
• 1971 Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool
• 1973 Sunderland 1-0 Leeds United
• 1979 Arsenal 3-2 Manchester United
• 1987 Coventry City 3-2 Tottenham Hotspur

Elsewhere on WhatChan