FA Cup final: Tommy Hutchison, the ex-Manchester City winger who 'turned into Peter Pan'
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Manchester City's Tommy Hutchison takes on Tottenham's Ricky Villa in the 1981 FA Cup final, which Spurs won in a replay
It was an FA Cup final moment which, former Manchester City winger Tommy Hutchison says, "turned me into a Peter Pan".
Yet none of City's players of today - nor indeed any from Manchester United - would wish to emulate Hutchison when Pep Guardiola's team meet the Red Devils in this season's final on Saturday.
In the cup final of 1981, Hutchison scored a first-half header to put City ahead against Tottenham Hotspur.
But 11 minutes from time, the ex-Scotland international inadvertently delivered a Spurs equaliser, when he attempted to block Glenn Hoddle's free-kick but only succeeded in diverting the ball into his own net.
Tottenham would go on to triumph in the replay - these were the days before cup final penalty shootouts - thanks to Ricky Villa's brilliant winner.
Hutchison played more than 1,000 league games in a remarkable career which continued well into his forties and featured spells in five different countries, as well as a World Cup appearance for Scotland in 1974.
Yet Hutchison, now 75, accepts that he will be remembered for the day he scored for both teams at Wembley.
"If you ask people who scored the winning goal in cup finals, they will struggle. But if you ask them who scored an own goal in the cup final, they will tell you who it is," he says.
"That turned me into a Peter Pan."
Tommy Hutchison (right) makes his fateful attempt to block a free-kick from Glen Hoddle (number 10)
Hutchison had put City in front with what looked like a fine header which flew inside the near post, although he insists he was trying to flick Ray Ranson's cross on and "never meant to score".
The own goal came when he dropped back from a defensive wall in an attempt to help out goalkeeper Joe Corrigan.
Hutchison was left with head in hands after the ball, which had been heading towards Corrigan's near post, hit his shoulder and sailed into the opposite side of the net.
"The problem was I knew what he [Hoddle] was going to do," Hutchison says.
"If I'd tried to watch what he had done, then gone, it would have been all right. I read it too quickly.
"I got there too early. I had run past it and it clipped my shoulder."
After he finally retired as a player, more than a decade later, Hutchison - whose last Football League club was Swansea City - would visit schools in south Wales as part of his role as a football development officer.
Tommy Hutchison was voted fans' player of the year three times during his spell at Coventry City
"I would say I played for Manchester City, I played for Scotland. The kids hadn't a clue who I was," Hutchison explains.
"None of them would mention anything about the cup final."
Yet when he returned for a second visit, that would invariably change.
"You'd know they'd gone home and been asked 'what did you do today at school?'," Hutchison adds.
"And their dad had said: 'Tommy Hutchison came in? Ask him about the cup final'.
"That question got asked of me every second event with a school that I ever went to.
"But it never bothered me. I think maybe it would have if there hadn't been a replay, because we were ahead in the replay as well. The own goal wasn't the decisive moment."
Hutchison's professional career had begun at Alloa Athletic, before he joined Stan Mortensen's Blackpool in 1968.
He played in the top flight for Blackpool before joining Coventry City, where he spent eight happy years playing First Division football.
Then came the spell at Maine Road, before stints playing in the US and Hong Kong preceded a return to these shores, with Hutchison spending two years at Burnley and then joining Swansea aged 38.
He would spend six years at Swansea, making his European debut with the Welsh side shortly before his 42nd birthday - they qualified via the Welsh Cup - and playing his final professional game when aged 43, before three further seasons in the Southern League with Merthyr.
Tommy Hutchison in action for Scotland against West Germany in 1974
Of all his achievements, Hutchison is most proud of his 17 international caps, hence the cover of his book, Hutch, Hard Work and Belief, features a picture of him in Scotland colours.
He made two substitute appearances at the World Cup, setting up a late equaliser for Joe Jordan against Yugoslavia, as Scotland exited at the group stage after drawing their three games.
"The problem for me was that if they were going to play me, they were going to have leave Kenny Dalglish out," Hutchison says. "That wasn't going to happen."
Hutchison will have an eye on the cup final this weekend, and on a Manchester City side who are "a lot different" to the team fighting to avoid relegation he joined in 1980.
So would he like to play for Pep Guardiola?
"I don't know if I would suit him because I run with the ball, whereas they tend to just pass it and play in little triangles," Hutchison says.
"I had a problem with Billy Bremner because he would pass you the ball and want it back, same with Alan Hudson when I was in America. They only leant you the ball to get it back.
"They soon realised if they gave it to me, they were going to have run and join me, because I am only going one way.
"For me, that's what the fans wanted."
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