The 2000 League Cup final between Tranmere and Leicester was the 16th game of Joe Murphy’s first-team career. The goalkeeper was 18 and standing nervously inside the old Wembley tunnel when he was approached by his opposite number, Tim Flowers. “He said I must have balls the size of an elephant,” Murphy remembers.
Cup final memories have been flooding back to Murphy since Martin O’Neill, Leicester’s manager for their 2-1 win against John Aldridge’s Tranmere, drew the two clubs together in the second round of the Carabao Cup.
