Hat-trick hero

Remarkably, no player has scored an FA Cup Semi-Final hat-trick for half a century.

This year sees the 50th anniversary of Alex Dawson's hat-trick for Manchester United against Fulham in a Highbury replay on 26 March 1958.

It was only seven weeks after the Munich tragedy, so the whole country was willing United's decimated team to make it to Wembley. Dawson, the son of a Grimsby trawlerman, was a 'Busby Babe' who hadn't been involved in that fateful European Cup tie in Belgrade.

He scored in United's famous FA Cup victory over Sheffield Wednesday, played less than two weeks after the crash, and the youngster registered his Semi-Final hat-trick when he was just 18 years and 33 days old.

Dawson recalled his scoring feat at Highbury:-

"It was thick mud that day - just how I used to like it. It was a bit misty too. I scored with a header, a left-footer and a right-footer. The best of the three was the first one, a diving header.

"I know that no-one's scored a hat-trick in a Semi-Final since that day, though a couple of players have come close. Where I work they say 'You can't break our Alex's record!'

"After we'd beaten Fulham (5-3) we played Bolton in the Final. I played on the right wing against Tommy Banks, Bolton's left-back, who said 'You can't put that little baby in to play against me!"