Notts Forest v Leeds Utd Feb 1965

[onthebox]

I have a programme Notts Forest v Leeds Utd dated 6th Feb 1965, the curious thing about it the programme is stamped CANCELLED in large letters all over the front cover. I checked the stats and it looks like the game went ahead as planned. Any ideas

[Footyfan]

Hi,

I can answer your question. In 1965 Leeds copied Manchester Utd, and others, in introducing a token system for obtaining tickets for big games. They also allowed the front covers of away games to be included.

Therefore, when you queued up for tickets for the 1965 FA Cup Semi-Final, Replay and FA Cup Final you had to have tokens from home programmes stuck on the official token sheet and covers or away match programmes. Once you had bought your ticket the token sheets and programmes were either stamped 'Cancelled' or had a thick black line drawn across them to show they had been used.

I am 100% certain that your programme was once used to obtain a ticket at Leeds. Every now and again programmes appear on EBay with cancelled or a black line across the cover. People automatically think the game was postponed (cancelled) but that is not the case. Leeds played at Forest on 6 Feb 1965.