The Origins Of The FA Cup: White Horse Bridge & The Graf Zeppelin

When Leicester City meet Chelsea in this Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup Final, it will be the 140th showpiece since the competition was established in 1871/72. It will also be the 86th FA Cup Final to be played at Wembley.

2021-05-12T15:22:00.000Z

by John Hutchinson

Published

12 May, 2021

The Origins Of The FA Cup: White Horse Bridge & The Graf Zeppelin

When Leicester City meet Chelsea in this Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup Final, it will be the 140th showpiece since the competition was established in 1871/72. It will also be the 86th FA Cup Final to be played at Wembley.

John Hutchinson

2021-05-12T15:22:00.000Z

The Origins Of The FA Cup: White Horse Bridge & The Graf Zeppelin

When Leicester City meet Chelsea in this Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup Final, it will be the 140th showpiece since the competition was established in 1871/72. It will also be the 86th FA Cup Final to be played at Wembley.

John Hutchinson

2021-05-12T15:22:00.000Z

The Origins Of The FA Cup: White Horse Bridge & The Graf Zeppelin

When Leicester City meet Chelsea in this Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup Final, it will be the 140th showpiece since the competition was established in 1871/72. It will also be the 86th FA Cup Final to be played at Wembley.

John Hutchinson

2021-05-12T15:22:00.000Z

The Origins Of The FA Cup: White Horse Bridge & The Graf Zeppelin

When Leicester City meet Chelsea in this Saturday’s Emirates FA Cup Final, it will be the 140th showpiece since the competition was established in 1871/72. It will also be the 86th FA Cup Final to be played at Wembley.

John Hutchinson

2021-05-12T15:22:00.000Z

In the years leading up to the First World War, finals were played at Kennington Oval, Crystal Palace (with a record crowd of 120,000), Lillie Bridge, Fallowfield and Anfield with replays at Burnden Park, Goodison Park and Old Trafford.

After the FA legalised professionalism in 1885, the dominance in the competition of the public school, university and army sides gave way to the professional sides of the Football League, although Southern League side Tottenham Hotspur did win the cup in 1901 when they defeated Sheffield United after a replay.

This was the maiden final to be filmed. It was also the first final when ribbons in the winners’ colours were attached to the cup.

King George V was the first monarch to present the FA Cup as Burnley beat Liverpool at Crystal Palace in 1914 shortly before the outbreak of the First World War. Controversially, football continued in wartime until the cup final of 1915.

Sheffield United defeated Chelsea in what became known as the 'Khaki Final' because of the preponderance of army uniforms in the Old Trafford crowd. After a four-year break, the FA Cup was resumed in 1919/20. Aston Villa beat Huddersfield Town at Stamford Bridge which also hosted the next two finals.

In 1923, the final moved to the newly-opened Wembley Stadium. Built for the British Empire Exhibition, scheduled for 1924, the stadium was known as the British Empire Exhibition Stadium or, more simply, the Empire Stadium.

Finished only four days before the 1923 final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, it had a capacity of 127,000. An estimated 200,000 to 300,000 fans arrived for the match, which was delayed for 45 minutes as the crowd spilled over onto the pitch.

Mounted police, most notably PC George Scorey and his white horse Billy, gradually pushed the crowd back, enabling the game to start. The final became known as the 'White Horse Final'. White Horse Bridge at the new Wembley Stadium is named in Billy’s honour.

There were several other noteworthy occurrences at cup finals in the years leading up to the outbreak of the Second World War In 1939.

In 1927, four years after the White Horse Final, the FA Cup left England for the only time its history when Cardiff City defeated Arsenal. This final was also very significant for two other reasons. The traditional cup final song, Abide With Me, was first sung at Wembley.

This is because it was the favourite hymn of Queen Mary, the wife of King George V. Also, the 1927 final was the first-ever cup showpiece to be broadcast on the radio by the BBC, which produced a numbered grid of the pitch for Radio Times readers to follow the ball.

This was the origin of the phrase 'back to square one' as this was used, in conjunction with the grids, to describe a pass back to the goalkeeper.

In 1930, the 100,000-strong cup final crowd was startled at the clash between Arsenal and Huddersfield Town when the longest and largest airship in the world, the German Graf Zeppelin, dramatically flew low over the ground during the match, overshadowing the pitch.

The first televised cup final, meanwhile, was in 1938 when Preston North End overcame Huddersfield Town 1-0 after extra-time, and the following year Portsmouth beat Wolverhampton Wanders 4-1 to win the cup.

The outbreak of the Second World War four months later meant that this was the last FA Cup Final for seven years, giving Portsmouth the odd distinction of being the club which held onto the trophy for the longest spell in its history.

During the war, the FA Cup was replaced by the Football League War Cup, but it was reinstated in the transition season of 1945/46, even though the Football League didn’t recommence until 1946/47.

In the transition season, for the only time in its history, each round of the FA Cup up until the semi-final was played on a two-leg home-and-away basis.

Starved of top class football for so long, huge crowds flocked to these games, but in the second leg of the quarter-final tie between Bolton Wanderers and Stoke City, disaster struck. With an estimated 87,000 trying to get into Burnden Park, 33 people tragically died and hundreds more were injured. The match, however, continued.

Three years later, Leicester City, struggling in the Second Division, defeated league champions Portsmouth in the semi-final and reached their first-ever FA Cup Final, where they were defeated by Wolverhampton Wanderers.

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