Referee Alf Buksh Event 1988–89 FA Cup Venues Sutton, Gander Green Lane | Date 7 January 1989 Attendance 8,000 | |
Sutton United 2–1 Coventry City was a football match played on 7 January 1989 at Gander Green Lane, Sutton. The match was an FA Cup Third Round tie.
It is one of the most famous 'giant-killings' in the competition's history, notable for being one of those rare occasions when a non-League side defeated a club from the highest tier of English football. It remained the most recent such occasion for 24 years, until Luton Town beat Norwich City in the FA Cup Fourth Round in 2013. The home team, Sutton United, played in the Conference. The away team, Coventry City, played in the old First Division.
For Coventry, it was a stark role-reversal from their success 19 months earlier in the 1987 FA Cup Final, when they had been on the right end of a much-celebrated underdog triumph.