'It was just like Barcelona.' Manchester United remember the joy of 1974/75

40 years ago this weekend a landmark season in United's history ended

Willie Morgan in action for Manchester United in October 1974 (GETTY IMAGES)

It was the Blackpool game, 40 years ago this weekend, which so many people remember; attack after attack from Manchester United and goal after goal sending the Stretford End into such pronounced tidal waves of movement that some supporters were actually praying it would just stop.

The 4-0 victory, accomplished through two goals by Stuart Pearson, one by Lou Macari and the last by Brian Greenhoff, sealed a season which some may say Manchester United have cause to forget – their briefest of stays in the second division, in 1974/75 – though which others in and around the side will tell you was a staging post in the development of football played the United way.

They had been relegated the previous season in ignominious style, with the demands of moving on some of the great vestiges of Sir Matt Busby’s squad far more challenging than anticipated by manager Tommy Docherty – a man working with the Busby inheritance just as Louis van Gaal has been with Sir Alex Ferguson’s, this past season. Weaker men that he – Frank Farrell and Wilf McGuiness – had failed, just like Ferguson’s mantle was beyond David Moyes. Docherty was the man with the ego and reputation United looked for next.

The drop was desperate, though he was not so overwhelmed that he felt the need to rip anything up. And what Docherty fashioned amid the modesty of the second tier was remarkable: a brand of attacking, free-flowing football which saw United sweep pretty much all aside. There was a new philosophy, too: a prolific 4-2-4 structure, and a technical style based on the two-touch football he'd been brought up with in the Preston North End side, alongside Tom Finney.

“I faced it in that first season and I played with it in the second,” says Gordon Hill, who – with Steve Coppell – was one of the two flying wingers who brought so much to the new philosophy, but who was on the receiving end for Millwall in ‘74/75, before Docherty signed him for the following campaign. “With the Doc it was all about us. ‘He’d say before we went out on the pitch ‘I’ve no problem them scoring. So long as we score two.’ Being a part of it felt like playing the London Palladium. It was 100mph but controlled. Everyone was playing to their strengths and used to their strengths.”

Hill, speaking from his home in Florida, still radiates the energy of those days, in which successive 1975 and 1976 FA Cup semi victories over Leeds United and Derby County, two of the clubs who had stolen United’s clothes, were huge statements. His testimony also contributes significantly to a new book on that season, entitled 74/75 by the United writer and historian Wayne Barton, which chronicles the extraordinary season, game by game.

In his introduction to the book, Docherty, now 86, describes his players as "flies around a sugar bowl when the other team had the ball. We'd hurry them into mistakes.” He says: “Home and away, we played the same way." So, Hill is not the only one to draws comparisons between that United philosophy and the modern Barcelona. “Control, pass; control, pass,” writes Docherty. “No need to tackle hard. Just get in and nick the ball. This was the football I was brought up with but the football I loved to see too, and wanted my team to play. The emphasis was very much on attack but responsibly so; it was a formation that looked gung-ho when it had the ball but could track back and shift when the opposition had it. I had tried to play it earlier with George Best and Willie Morgan but George was never a proper winger….”

The wide men were not the only party of it. Gerry Daly’s contribution as playmaker in midfield, shifting the ball so rapidly, was the most vivid part to many, including my colleague Kevin Garside, who was among the 60,000 inside Old Trafford on that April day against Blackpool in 1974. (Another 20,000 were locked out. Despite being in the second tier, United were the best supported side in the country tat campaign.) Martin Buchan, the graceful libero, quick to get back, also mattered hugely. Greenhoff, who encouraged Barton to write the book but died in 2013, before it was completed. Stuart Pearson, signed from Hull City “for £100,000 plus one of our youth players,” Docherty says, made up in positional awareness what he lacked in height and scored 17 goals. But above all it was the settled side – something United had lacked for years – which served United so well.

It was not an entirely pretty picture, that season. There was a grim level of hooliganism all over the country, with the reputation of United’s fans the worst of all. An emergency meeting was held by the FA and Football League in December 1974 to discuss the violence that stalked the club. It was still evident on the day they were promoted, with a 2-2 draw at Notts County a week before Blackpool arrived in town.

That Docherty’s tenure – ended after his affair with Mary Brown, wife of the club physio came to light - should have been so truncated leaves unanswered the question of how far Docherty might have taken United answered. But he laid some big foundations. Van Gaal’s is not the only philosophy United should be acknowledging as they look to have turned the corner .

74/75, by Wayne Barton is published by Empire Publications (RRP £14.95)