This shirt was worn in the 1974 FA Cup final by Newcastle United midfielder Tommy Gibb, who came on as a 75th minute substitute for fellow Scotsman Jimmy Smith.
Sadly for Newcastle fans, they would leave Wembley empty handed as Liverpool ran out 3 – 0 winners with all their goals coming in the second half.
Gibb played for Newcastle between 1968 and 1975, and was part of their famous Fairs Cup winning squad. In 1975 he would leave for Sunderland, and then finish his career at Hartlepool at the end of the 1977/78 season.
One glaring omission from the Gibb shirt, which you’ll no doubt have spotted if you’ve also seen our Malcolm Macdonald shirt from the same game, is the missing number on the back!
For the final, Newcastle had a large white patch and red number on the back of each shirt, with Gibb being #12.
Photos from the game clearly show Gibb wearing a shirt with a number on the back, so what happened to the number?
As it happened, when he was younger, Tommy’s son often wore his father’s Cup Final shirt, but as Tommy normally played at #4, his son asked him to take the number off.
We bought Tommy’s Fairs Cup collection in 2016, but at the time he couldn’t find this shirt. It was recently re-discovered tucked away in the family home, but sadly the number hasn’t been found, although we have a signed letter from Tommy confirming the story and the shirt’s authenticity.
