Look back at when soccer introduced penalties

“I couldn’t believe it, my beloved Hull City were up against Georgie Best, Bobby Charlton and Denis Law. It’s like having Messi, Ronaldo and Mbappe in the same team,” Kelly recalled of the BBC’s Sporting Witness programme.

Former Hull City player Frankie Banks said: “It was a massive game to play against Manchester United, who had won the European Cup two years before.

“The atmosphere was exciting.

“The Man United players were our heroes. On paper we didn’t have a chance. We wanted to win, we wanted to prove to everyone that even though they were probably the best team in the world, we could go out and give them a game.”

And that’s exactly what they did, taking the lead on 11 minutes through Chris Chilton before Law pulled one back for United in the 78th minute to send the game into extra time. As the clock ticked down on the extra half hour, players realized they were about to be part of something historic.

“(Hull player-manager) Terry Neill obviously asked for volunteers and some of the lads were reluctant to step up and take the penalties and some were brave enough to step up and say ‘I’ll take one, I’ll take one and I’ll take one’,” said Banks, who was not on the team sheet that day but was at the game.

“No one wants to be the one who misses out.”

And most importantly, no one wants to be the first player to ever miss a shootout.

However, Best was happy to go down as the first player to score, sending his right-footed shot low into the left-hand corner.

For Hull City, Neill became the first player-manager to score in a shootout, helping to level the score at 3-3.

“It was still anybody’s game and the noise was deafening,” Banks said.

But then, in a moment many big-name players to come through the decades would experience, Law saw his low shot saved by a diving Ian McKechnie.

“Law will forever and ever go down as the first man to miss in a penalty shootout and McKechnie will go down as the first goalkeeper to save a penalty in a penalty shootout,” Banks said.

Ken Wagstaff then missed for Hull and so when Willie Morgan pressed United, Hull knew they had to convert their last kick.

And it was then that McKechnie became the first goalkeeper to take a penalty in a shootout.

“Please, not him,” Kelly remembers thinking. “I couldn’t believe it, my mum couldn’t believe it, even Alex Stepney, the Man United keeper, couldn’t believe it and actually asked him what he was doing up there. I had my head in my hands!”

McKechnie stepped up and blasted a powerful strike … against the top of the crossbar. And with that, he became the first goalkeeper to miss a penalty in a shootout.

“I still maintain that Ian McKechnie was the right choice – he had a sweet left foot – and he had the guts to do it. I would have put money on him to score,” Banks said.

“Missing that punishment stuck with Ian for the rest of his life.”