John Bird’s memory remains clear of the day 43 years ago when Preston North End nearly took Manchester United to an FA Cup replay, and he was part of a defence that ensured George Best “never got a kick”.

This was the last time these two famous clubs met. But on Monday evening the 76th edition of a local rivalry that dates from 1890, when United were still Newton Heath, occurs at Deepdale when Preston host Louis van Gaal’s side.

On 5 February 1972, Bird was a centre-half in the North End team who gave a Frank O’Farrell United vintage, led by the holy trinity of Best, Denis Law and Bobby Charlton, a real scare in the fourth round until Alan Gowling goals on 85 and 88 minutes secured a 2-0 win before 37,052 fans at Deepdale.

Bird says: “Previous to that I’d seen Besty play and he scored a hat-trick, probably one of the greatest games he ever had. He was unbelievable and when I thought I was playing against him I couldn’t believe it. I’m not exaggerating – he hardly got a kick, he didn’t do a thing. I swear on it – didn’t do a thing.

“This was the strange thing: Dave Connor was a full-back signed from Manchester City and the big thing in the dressing room was he was up against George Best. Dave hadn’t been a regular at City but he’d played a few games and this was the biggest thing in his life – and Besty never got a kick. He played him out of the game.”

Preston had been promoted from the old Third Division the previous season. A United XI also featuring Alex Stepney, David Sadler and Brian Kidd, who with Best and Charlton were members of the 1968 European Cup winning-side, held no fears for Bird and company.

“It was a magnificent draw. And yes, you wondered how you would match up to them and that standard,” says Bird. “But of course we were at home, and Alan Ball senior [Preston’s manager] was a great motivator – that’s Alan Ball’s dad – and the atmosphere was unbelievable. There was a hell of a crowd.”

With the match still goalless inside the final minutes, Bird began to dream of a replay. “I can remember thinking: Well, we’ve done well here, we haven’t beaten them but the reward of going to Old Trafford was going to be unbelievable,” Bird says.

“And it was taken away from us. That’s why we were disappointed because we knew we were in the game and we’d equalled them and we lost it.”

Bird, now 66, will not be at Deepdale, having last watched a live match when managing Halifax Town for four years until 1996, when he walked away from football. That was his third managerial post, after being at Hartlepool United from 1986 to 1988 and then York City from 1988 to 1991.

Bird’s life now is consumed by art. An avid painter since his playing days – on joining Newcastle United from Preston in 1975 he opened a gallery – he is the proprietor of the John Bird Studio. There he displays his paintings – he has had work shown at the Tate – and those of other artists, some of whom he represents.

“When I moved to Newcastle I had a gallery for eight years,” Bird says. “And I also had one-man exhibitions, with two in Norway. I got a dealer that was interested and I went across there in summer. But then when I went to Hartlepool and became manager [having finished playing there in 1985] I lost all interest until after Halifax.”

In the 19 years since a passion has grown into Bird’s second profession. “I do a lot of work for English Heritage, I’ve got my paintings all over the country. I’ve exhibited at the Tate – and, of course, I’ve opened this gallery in Doncaster, so it’s quite serious,” he says.

Bird is still a football enthusiast and knows Monday’s encounter will recall the occasion all those years ago when Preston were still hopeful of rising again – 14 years previously in the 1957-58 season the club had finished second in the old First Division – to reclaim the glory days of a club that won English football’s first Double in 1889.

While Bird would be a team-mate of Gowling’s later at Newcastle, his transfer to Tyneside had serious ramifications for Charlton, who by 1975 was at Preston.

Bird says: “You’ve got a strange twist to this – the twist is Bobby Charlton became manager, he made me captain, then he came back to play but I was captain in the team. He was a great bloke and Newcastle United came in for me behind his back. He got me in his office, said: ‘You’re staying here, I’m going to give you a new contract, you’re my captain, they’re not going to wreck my side.’

“And they [Preston board] insisted I move and he resigned over me going to Newcastle. You can look that up – it was in all the papers, on the News at Ten, everything. And that’s how he went out of football – through me.”

Charlton obviously valued Bird. “Yeah, well, strangely he made me captain and don’t forget he signed Dave Sadler as well. After a while I was his main centre-half and he put Sadler into midfield,” says Bird. “Bobby signed Nobby Stiles, too. But this is afterwards. Little did I know when I played in that game Bobby Charlton would be my manager and he would actually go out of football through my move to Newcastle United.”

The sport today exists in an age of relentless buildup and hype. How was it for that tie? “Oh, it was massive in the local area,” says Bird. “In the town everything was about getting ready for the game, everybody was just waiting for it. Thursday, Friday, Saturday … you couldn’t go anywhere without people talking about it.”

This is an era of ever-changing formations. Van Gaal has switched United’s shape at least six times this season. How did Preston line up then? “It’d be more or less a 4-4-2, or a 4-3-3. I’d be playing centre-half with Alex Spark, John McMahon and Connor were the full-backs, [Jim] McNab, [George] Lyall, [Ricky] Heppolette and [Alan] Spavin were the midfield. Spavin was the main man, the playmaker,” says Bird of a Preston team that day completed by Hugh McIlmoyle and Gerry Ingram in attack.

Do Simon Grayson’s Preston, who are in League One, have less of a chance than Bird’s side? “Look at some of the draws lately, how some of the lower teams have matched the Premier League sides. They’ve given them a shock, haven’t they?”

While on Saturday the Championship’s Blackburn Rovers became the latest club to illustrate this, knocking out Stoke City with a fine 4-1 win, Bird points to United’s draw at West Ham United, in which Van Gaal used the long ball to rescue a point.

Bird says: “The West Ham game – I could see Preston worrying them. They can wobble at times. And you’ve only got to catch them in one of these instances and you never know with a cup game.”

As United came so close to discovering on a memorable February day, four decades ago.