5 YEARS AGO: The dust had hardly settled on Wanderers’ most successful Premiership season, but moves were already well advanced to strengthen their hand for their first venture into Europe.

A permanent deal to secure the enigmatic El-Hadji Diouf – controversial but irrepressible during his season-long loan – was manager Sam Allardyce’s first priority but he was also keeping a close eye on the situation on Tyneside where former England and Manchester United midfielder Nicky Butt was said to be surplus to the requirements of Newcastle manager Graeme Souness.

Wanderers chairman Phil Gartside was negotiating with Liverpool, hoping to get the Merseyside club to lower their £5 million asking price for the Senegal international.

Amid the euphoria of qualifying for the UEFA Cup there was a cloud of sadness over the Reebok following the sudden death of their former head groundsman, Alan Whittle – one of the club’s most popular characters.

Manchester United dominated the FA Cup final but it was Arsenal who triumphed at Cardiff, winning the penalty shootout 5-4 after 120 minutes of goalless action at Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium.

United, under new ownership following the controversial Glazer takeover, ended the season without a trophy but manager Sir Alex Ferguson was philosophical, and refused to let Paul Scholes shoulder the blame after his crucial spot kick was saved by Gunners keeper Jens Lehmann.

“It is unfortunate for Paul that he missed the one that has cost us the cup, but there is no blame on him whatsoever,” Ferguson said. “How many games has he won for Manchester United?”

Bolton boxer Amir Khan announced his long-awaited and much-anticipated decision to turn professional – but not before taking revenge on Mario Kindelan.

The legendary Cuban had beaten Khan twice before – most famously in the Olympic final – but the 18-year-old triumphed at the third attempt, impressing a partisan home crowd at the Reebok Stadium plus millions more who watched on television, winning 19-13 to end his amateur career rated the best lightweight in the world.

25 YEARS AGO: Kevin Moran became the first player to be sent off in an FA Cup final – but Manchester United overcame the handicap to beat Everton 1-0 and put their manager Ron Atkinson on an all-time high.

Moran’s indiscretion (he was harshly sent off by referee Peter Willis for a fractionally-late tackle on Peter Reid) presented the FA’s Challenge Cup committee with a dilemma – whether to award him a medal.

They might not have had a medal to give him but for Worsley businessman and football personality Fred Eyre. Making the most of his afternoon as a VIP guest, Fred was last to leave the Royal Box – and it was just as well as he spotted Moran’s medal had been carelessly left among the litter.

“But for me it might have been thrown away with the rubbish,” said Fred.

“It was in a cardboard box which had been brought up containing the medals. It was just lying there.

“I thought it was a loser’s medal that one of the Everton players hadn’t bothered collecting. But when I handed it to Graham Kelly, the league secretary, he checked and found it was a winner’s medal.”

Typical of one of the great jokers in the game, Fred saw the incident as a milestone in his career as one of football’s great under-achievers: “At least I’ll always be able to say I’ve picked up an FA Cup winners medal in the Royal Box at Wembley.”

Larry Holmes – king of the heavyweights – moved to within one fight of Rocky Marciano’s fight winning record with a unanimous but hard-fought 15-round decision over Carl “The Truth” Williams.

Holmes, a veteran of 15 years in professional boxing, had to put in a big effort in the final rounds to retain the IBF championship to edge the Las Vegas showdown. It was his 18th defence of the title and took his career record to 48-0. Marciano – the only heavyweight champion to retire without having lost – was 49-0 when he hung up his gloves in 1956.

Frenchman Alain Prost produced a precision performance worthy of his nickname “Professor” to win the Monaco Grand Prix for the second successive year.

50 YEARS AGO: Two years after Nat Lofthouse barged Harry Gregg over the line on the way to leading Bolton Wanderers to their FA Cup final triumph over Manchester United at Wembley, moves were afoot to offer more protection to goalkeepers.

Reading were planning to put a proposal forward at the Football Association’s annual meeting to outlaw the charging of goalkeepers and it looked like getting the backing of many other clubs.

It was a vexed question and generated a lot of anger from Continentals whenever they played English teams and were enraged that their goalkeepers were constantly being roughed up.

Wanderers’ end-of-season tour of Europe did little to improve international relations. They won their first two games on the German leg of the “friendly” programme but they won no friends nor admirers Twenty-four hours after manager Bill Ridding threatened to order his players off the field in protest at Borussia Dortmund flagrantly ignoring an agreement not to use substitutes, Roy “Chopper” Hartle was sent off in a 3-2 victory over VFB Stuttgart Technically, the Germans were the better team but Wanderers had the edge where it mattered. Dougie Holden scored the only goal against Dortmund and Peter Deakin, Ray Parry and Neville Bannister were on target against Stuttgart before being booed off by 5,000 German supporters who didn’t take kindly to their over-physical approach.

Elsewhere, England lost 2-0 in Hungary, Manchester United beat Heart of Midlothian 3-0 in an exhibition match in New York, and Real Madrid put on an exhibition of their own when they beat Eintracht Frankfurt 7-3 at Hampden Park in front of a crowd of 135,000 to win the European Cup in one of the greatest club games of all time.

Wigan were underdogs going into their Rugby League Championship clash with Wakefield Trinity at Bradford’s Odsal ground, but came away victorious, winning 27-3 to take their ninth title.

Brian Statham took seven wickets as Lancashire got Leicestershire out for 103 to win their County Championship clash by 122 runs.