WITH the FA Cup reaching the quarter-final stage this weekend, Gordon Sharrock looks back on a famous sixth round clash when two of the most formidable teams in the land went head to head in one of the most memorable, full-blooded ties ever played at Burnden Park.

THOSE who were privileged to have witnessed it remember the Bolton Wanderers-Wolverhampton Wanderers quarter-final of the glorious 1958 FA Cup campaign as one of the most thrilling ties ever played at Burnden Park.

Mighty Wolves were chasing a League and Cup double. But Bill Ridding’s Wanderers – that fabled team assembled for the princely sum of £110 – were building a reputation as redoubtable cup fighters. And so it proved on that unforgettable afternoon at Manchester Road. It was advantage Bolton after 28 minutes when Nat Lofthouse fed Brian Birch on the right and the winger’s cross was slammed home by Dennis Stevens. But the Molineux men were level within two minutes when Bobby Mason headed home Norman Deeley’s centre. The pendulum swung Wanderers’ way again when Ray Parry curled the sweetest of free-kicks out of Malcolm Finlayson’s reach to send the huge Bolton crowd wild. But that served only to inspire Stan Cullis’s champions-elect, who had more than half an hour to launch a valiant attempt to rescue the tie. It became even harder to bear for the increasingly anxious Bolton fans when Parry was stretchered off with concussion after a thundering collision with Finlayson, the Wolves keeper, and, with Derek Hennin virtually a passenger with a muscle strain, it seemed they needed a miracle to hold out. But hold out they did and, having beaten the most powerful team in the land, there was no stopping them. Wanderers: Hopkinson; Hartle, Banks, Hennin, Higgins, Edwards, Birch, Stevens, Lofthouse, Parry, Holden.

Wolves: Finlayson; Stuart, Harris, Clamp, Wright, Flowers, Deeley, Broadbent, Murray, Mason, Mullen.

Attendance: 56,306 Referee: A Holland (Barnsley)