It was the day Manchester United came to town for an FA Cup Third Round tie played at Borough Park, a stadium only twenty-one years old and a Football League venue for a little over six years.

Reds had reached the Third Round after high scoring victories over Crook Town (8-1) at home and Oldham Athletic (5-1) at Boundary Park.

Reds’ scorer Clive Colbridge and Bill Foulkes pictured in front of a packed Popular Side

The excitement was intense after two emphatic victories but became tangible when the draw paired Third Division (North) Workington with Matt Busby’s Manchester United. The emphatic win at Oldham took place on 7 December so the month between the second and third rounds must have seemed like an eternity.

Reds had five league matches to play before the visit of Harry Gregg, Duncan Edwards, Roger Byrne, Bill Foulkes, Bobby Charlton and Dennis Viollet etc. and, considering the imminent ‘mother of all cup ties’, the results weren’t too bad. They lost at home to Bradford Park Avenue (2-3), drew at Halifax Town (2-2), drew at Carlisle United on Christmas Day (2-2), beat Carlisle United at Borough Park on Boxing Day (2-1) and lost at home to Rochdale (1-2) the week before United’s visit.

A packed Derwent End watches Ted Purdon attack the Town End

The big day finally arrived and a club record crowd of 21,000 squeezed into Borough Park – a once in a lifetime experience for the Workington players but nothing new to Old Trafford’s finest who had drawn 2-2 in front of a 70,000 Maine Road crowd in the Manchester derby seven days earlier.

Clive Colbridge had the audacity to open the scoring for humble Workington, a lead they held for nearly fifty minutes. Dennis Viollet then broke the hearts of thousands of Cumbrians by netting a hat-trick inside ten minutes and United emerged 3-1 winners.

Nevertheless, it was a magnificent day for the Reds and the eleven players who had the honour of playing in that historic game. The teams on duty that day were:

Reds

1. Malcolm Newlands
2. Bobby Brown
3. Alex Rollo
4. Jack Bertolini
5. George Aitken
6. Keith Burkinshaw
7. Norman Mitchell
8. Billy Robson
9. Ted Purdon
10. Ken Chisholm
11. Clive Colbridge

United
1 Harry Gregg
2 Bill Foulkes
3 Roger Byrne
4 Eddie Colman
5 Mark Jones
6 Duncan Edwards
7 Ken Morgans
8 Bobby Charlton
9 Tommy Taylor
10 Dennis Viollet
11 Albert Scanlon

The gate receipts were £2,236 and it is interesting to note some of the expenses:

United’s rail fares and hotel bill came to seventy-three pounds and ten shillings, referee – eleven pounds three shillings, police charges – forty-five pounds seventeen shillings and four pence and floodlighting four pounds.

United and Reds banked just under £679 each as their share of the gate.

Billy Robson was the only local player in the side which faced United, and remains one of only four players still alive on the anniversary of that great occasion in 1958.

United’s Harry Gregg and Duncan Edwards along with Workington’s Ken Chisholm

A month after the greatest day in Workington’s history, the most tragic in United’s occurred. The Munich air disaster wiped out half of Busby’s team and five of those (Byrne, Colman, Taylor, Edwards and Jones) who had played at Workington were killed.