SOUTHAMPTON head to Wembley for this afternoon’s League Cup final against Manchester United looking to claim what would be only their second major honour. The first came 41 years ago at the same ground and against the same opposition. And four Scots were at the heart of the triumph.

Southampton’s manager at that time was Lawrie McMenemy. Now 80, he won’t be at Wembley to see if the current crop can add another trophy to the FA Cup he and his players lifted in 1976, but his recollections of that cup run – and the Scots who made it happen – remain crystal clear.

Beside him in the dug-out that day was his assistant Jim Clunie, a Fifer who had enjoyed a successful playing career with Aberdeen and St Mirren and who would appear on McMenemy’s radar in 1973. Three years later and they were masterminding one of the biggest FA Cup shocks of all time.

“I first came across Jim at Grimsby when I was manager there,” recalled McMenemy down the phone line from his home in Hampshire. “I inherited 12 players when I went there and managed to get two more on free transfers. That was the state they were in.

“There was one member of staff that I inherited and that was John Fraser. He was our physio from Scotland and it was him who recommended hiring Jim Clunie. I had never heard of Jim and he had probably never heard of me but I told John to get him to come down for a meeting. So Jim came down with his wife for the weekend and we clicked straight away. And that’s how we got together.

“We won the league [the old English fourth division] in our first season at Grimsby. A few years later I got the Southampton job and, when I was settled in, I got Jim down to join us. He and his family had a house not far from ours and the two families got on really well. And Jim and I became good friends. He was a smashing bloke and had apparently been a good player in his day, too. When he eventually left it was only because he had been offered a manager’s job back home with St Mirren.

“Jim was a great bloke to have by your side. I’ve managed in every one of the four divisions in England. At the bottom levels you’re 90 per cent coach and 10 per cent manager as you only have about 14 players and need to get the most out of them. And the higher up you go it goes the other way. You’ve got better players who don’t need coached but they need bloody managing!

“The important thing, then, for a manager is to have good staff and Jim fitted in to that perfectly. The players respected him and liked him. Sometimes Jim would hear stuff and pass it on to you, and other times he would deal with it himself.

“A manager needs someone to bounce off and Jim came into that category. We would go round the country watching games, sharing the driving and chatting about players and the like on those long journeys. I knew I could trust him with everything. I didn’t want Jim to leave but I could understand that he wanted to take the opportunity back home to become a manager in his own right. But we missed him after that.”

Southampton, in the second division at that time, were the underdogs against Tommy Docherty’s United in 1976 but the star player on the day would turn out to be Jim Steele. The Edinburgh-born central defender, who had signed for Southampton from Dundee four years earlier, would end the day with both a winner’s medal and the man-of-the-match accolade.

“If you were comparing the two centre-halves who played that day, Mel Blyth was your Jack Charlton and Jim was your Bobby Moore,” McMenemy said. “Jim was a good left-sided player and a ball player, as opposed to a centre-half that would stick his head in and belt it up the park. He was more of a footballing type. And for all the bigger names on the pitch that day – including a load of internationals – for Jim to be voted the man of the match was a great honour. He deserved it.

“He was a good player and a solid, dependable lad who went on to play in the States for a while. He’s back living in this area now and I’ve bumped into him once or twice. Last May they put on various events to mark the 40th anniversary of the cup win and to see all the lads together again was fantastic. Sadly a few had passed on like Peter Osgood and little Bobby Stokes who scored our goal that day, but it was great to see the rest of them as the team doesn’t get together that often.”

Providing the assist for Stokes that day was Jim McCalliog. The goalscoring hero for Scotland in their famous win over England at the same venue in 1967, McCalliog had been sold by United just 15 months earlier. It was evidently not something the man from the Gorbals had forgotten.

“Jim was a quality player,” recalled McMenemy. “I remember signing him from United after The Doc had decided to let him move on. That would come back to haunt him! Jim had that extra will to win in the final as he hadn’t wanted to leave United I don’t think.

“But he was a very good addition to our squad. He had that extra little bit of skill and vision that not all players have. If you watch our goal from the final, it was a goal kick and a flick on and, as it’s coming to Jim, he has a little glance inside to see what’s on. And not many players could have done that. So he helped it on and little Bobby was on to it. Most players would have taken two touches and given the keeper the chance to close the angle but he hit it first time and it scored.

“United have always argued that our goal was offside. Even now every year at the PFA dinner I see Martin Buchan [United’s Scottish captain in the 1976 final] walking towards me. He doesn’t stop but just looks at me and says, 'It was!' and I’ll reply 'It wasn’t!' and that’s all we say. But it’s been proved with the technology they’ve got nowadays that it was definitely onside.”

The other Scot in the Southampton squad was Hugh Fisher. Formerly of Blackpool, the midfielder ended up an unused substitute at Wembley but his role in scoring a late equaliser against Aston Villa in the third round was not forgotten. Without that, Southampton’s 1976 cup run would have ended at the first hurdle.

“Hughie was a lovely lad,” McMenemy said. “If there were three arguments in the dressing room he would agree with every one of them! I always felt a bit guilty that I couldn’t get him on in the final. If we had been losing or it had gone to extra time I might have. But after Bobby scored I couldn’t risk it. And he knew why. But he was still a big part of it.

“In an earlier round against Villa we got a free kick and we had everyone up and they had everyone back. But it wasn’t a scorcher or a bendy Beckham type free kick. I think it bounced about 40 times before it went in. The goalie was just stood there as he couldn’t see the ball as there were so many bodies in the way. And then we beat Villa in the replay and the journey went on. Without that there would have been no cup win a few months later.”