Flashback: 1952: Golden era for Well capped before crowd of 136,000

THE Motherwell team which reached the Scottish Cup final in 1952 had already become knockout specialists. Only a season earlier, they had lifted the League Cup trophy - winning 3-0 against a Hibernian team who had been odds-on favourites to win - and had also got to the final of the Scottish Cup, where they lost to Celtic.

That 1950 League Cup triumph was just Motherwell's second major club honour, and it signalled the beginning of what is still acclaimed as one of the most successful, albeit brief, periods in the history of the Fir Park club.

They had to do things the hard way to reach Hampden in the spring of 1952, as they were drawn away in all of their ties up to the semi-final. A 4-2 win at Forfar was followed by a 3-2 victory over St Mirren, then a 1-1 draw with Dunfermline before Motherwell won through with a convincing 4-0 result in the replay. That took them to the quarter-finals, where they also needed a replay before prevailing 2-1 against Rangers. Drawn against Hearts in the semi, they needed two replays before going through 3-1.

All three ties against the Tynecastle club, the last of which was just ten days prior to the final, were played at Hampden. Dundee's semi-final win over Third Lanark, by contrast, had been at Easter Road, leaving Motherwell with a clear advantage when it came to recent familiarity with the wide open spaces of the national stadium.

Nonetheless, Dundee themselves were also accustomed to the rigours of knockout competition, having won the League Cup at the start of the season, and were favourites to add the Scottish Cup to their trophy cabinet. And, in inside-forward Billy Steel - a man who would win 30 caps and had cost a Scottish record of 22,500 when he joined Dundee from Derby - they had the most gifted player on the field.

More than 136,000 people packed into Hampden on the afternoon of 19 April, and for a time Dundee justified their status as favourites. But, as had been the case in their League Cup win over Hibs, the Motherwell defence held firm.

In the end, the result was a far more emphatic victory than even the most optimistic Motherwell supporter must have thought possible. Jimmy Watson, Willie Redpath, Wilson Humphries and Archie Kelly got the goals in a 4-0 triumph, and manager George Stevenson - who had been a member of the league-winning side of 1931-32 - had another trophy to celebrate.