Most players would want to revel in their success after helping Manchester United win the FA Cup, but most players are not like Les Sealey.
Sealey was the United goalkeeper for the FA Cup final replay against Crystal Palace in the 1989/90 season. The way he ended up between the posts for Sir Alex Ferguson’s side is quite the story.
He was not an inexperienced player by any means: he was 32 and had made nearly 400 professional appearances for clubs including Coventry and Luton. But the cup final at Wembley was just his third appearance for United, having joined on loan that season as cover for injured second-choice keeper Gary Walsh.
Sealey was thrust into the spotlight after Ferguson decided to drop No1 goalkeeper Jim Leighton following a 3-3 draw with Palace in the first game. He responded by keeping out Mark Bright and Andy Gray to earn a clean sheet in a 1-0 win which secured Ferguson’s first piece of silverware.
“Was he a better keeper than Jim? No, but he thought he was, and that can sometimes be important,” Ferguson later explained of his bold selection call. “Les Sealey was cocky and sometimes downright arrogant, so I did not foresee a failure of his nerve at Wembley.”
Sealey may have been “cocky” but after parading the trophy around the pitch to the fans, he decided he did not want to be front and centre of United’s celebrations. He felt guilty for taking his friend Leighton’s place for the showpiece and tried to give his team-mate his winners’ medal.
Sealey also knew the media would want a piece of him, so rather than stick around to revel in the victory and soak up the attention, he slipped off. After speaking to Ferguson, he was allowed to go straight home to Essex rather than travelling back to Manchester with the rest of the squad.
In his autobiography, Definitely Mental , Sealey recalls how he got a lift with photographer Lawrence Lustig around the North Circular. He returned home for a ham sandwich and a cigar before going to Wanstead Cricket Club for a quiz he had promised to attend.
“You can look at it two ways; maybe he felt he shouldn’t be on the parade or you could look at it that he promised to be at the quiz night,” his son Joe told The Daily Star. “Whatever my dad said he would do, he did. Although knowing him and. what he did with the medal, he probably didn’t want to be there.”
Sealey stayed at Lustig’s house to hide from reporters, who were keen to get his remarkable story. He managed to avoid giving that story, but he later penned a manuscript for an autobiography that remained unpublished until being found by a family friend.
Sealey died in 2001, aged just 43, but his legend as the unheralded goalkeeper who helped save Ferguson’s career lives on. “If that day didn’t happen, a sliding moment for Man United then who knows what would have happened to both,” Joe Sealey added.
“I bumped into Ferguson last year and he said ‘your dad saved my career’ and I replied ‘you saved his’. Maybe he was going to get sacked but he certainly made my dad’s career. It was both their sliding doors moments.”
