THE IMMACULATE RECEPTION - 1972

After nearly forty years of making up the numbers in professional football, the Steelers chose Chuck Noll as their head coach in 1969 and began a journey that put the franchise into sports’ history books.

During the seventies, the Steelers leapt from being nobodies to the first team to win three, then four Super Bowls. The foundations for their success were laid when Noll was named as the replacement for Bill Austin in 1969 and through the draft, he gradually built the team that became the most successful ever in professional football.

After Noll’s first season, which saw his new team continue their poor performances, he traded Dick Shiner to the New York Giants for Henry Davis and running back John Fuqua.

Within two years of joining the team, flamboyant Fuqua was going to earn a bookmark to the first major moment in Steelers’ football. The seventies saw the pages of Steelers’ history expand dramatically and Fuqua was the feature player in a sporting legend and ensured his name would never be forgotten with Steelers’ fans.

When “Frenchy” Fuqua joined the Steelers, he initially became more famous for his fashion attire, including wearing shoes with large glass heels that had goldfish in them, than for being a running back.

In 1972, Frenchy played the central part in what Terry Bradshaw described as “the pivotal play in the team's history.” For the first time since they joined the league, the Steelers had a serious shot of making some progress in the postseason.

Playing only their third playoff game and against their big rivals of the day, the Oakland Raiders coached by John Madden, Pittsburgh was a city full of expectation anticipating their football lean years were finally behind them.

Coming off a 11-3 regular season with a 34-28 victory in the opener against Oakland, all the signs were apparent in a football town that the renaissance had arrived.

With 50,000 fans gathered in Three Rivers Stadium ready to pay homage to their heroes, the game became an anti-climax as it slipped into a mundane affair.

Roy Gerela, for the Steelers, kicked field goals of 18 and 20 yards, which gave Pittsburgh a 6-0 lead with under two minutes remaining.

The game appeared as though it would finish limply until Oakland’s quarterback, Ken Stabler, erased the Steelers lead after scrambling 30 yards on a broken play to put Oakland in front with one minute and 13 seconds remaining.

The Steelers were once again on the verge of disappearing down the well-worn road to obscurity when a moment of majestic magic transformed the franchise’s image from also rans to potential championship material in just a few seconds.

Down to their last play, the Steelers were 60 yards from the Oakland goal, with a fourth and long, when rookie running back Franco Harris made an incredible shoe-top catch of a ricocheted pass and ran 42 yards for the TD that won the game.

The fans in the stadium erupted into a frenzy of celebration as the accumulated years of frustration were exorcised.

There were a few tense minutes as the officials reviewed amongst themselves whether the ball had been caught legally or if it should have been blown dead.

The referee rang the press box to talk to Art McNally, the NFL's supervisor of officials, before eventually coming back onto the field to signal a touchdown. The wait for success had been a long one; Steeler fans would have not minded this additional delay.

The Steelers won the game 13-7 before facing defeat the following week against the only football team to remain unbeaten in a season, the Miami Dolphins.

Two years later, the ultimate prize came to Pittsburgh as they won the first of four Super Bowls in the decade that saw them come of age. The fans’ expectations had ultimately been realised. The city that loved football first had finally consummated their marriage.

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