This month marks 90 years since Cardiff City won the FA Cup and took the famous trophy from England into Wales. But Josh Thomas explains how it was an era of sadness and sacrifice as well as pride.
Wales is seen as a country continually renowned for its sport. The Champions League Final is being held in Cardiff. The football team reached the semi -finals of Euro 2016. The rugby team has underpinned selection once again for the Lions with Warren Gatland as head coach and Sam Warburton as captain for the second successive time.
Wales has truly stood out as a sporting nation, and with success has come financial reward, but so much is owed to many who laid the foundations with their own sacrifices.
As we continue to remember the First World War, 100 years ago, it is worth noting a letter to The Times in November 1914 from A F Pollard. It said: “Football is an excellent
thing, even in time of war. Armies and navies can only be maintained so long as the community fulfils its function of producing means for their support.”
While football was still being played during the war, it aimed to keep up the morale of an anxious public. But it also made a much more practical contribution after Arthur Conan Doyle made an appeal and said: “‘If a footballer has strength of limb, let them serve and march in the field of battle.”
Doyle’s words had a profound impact on those around him, prompting the FA and the War Office to come up with the idea of setting up a Football Battalion on the 12th December of 1914.
What is the Football Battalion?
The 17th Service Battalion of the Middlesex Regiment that later became known as the Football Battalion, was set up by William Joynson-Hicks and was aimed at players, officials and supporters.
Ian Nannestad of the website Soccer History, says: “The organisers hoped to enlist a full battalion of 1,350 men, apparently from the ranks of both amateur and professional players and staunch supporters of senior clubs.”
What impact did the Football Battalion have on Wales?
Peter Francis, of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, says: “Football, and footballers, played a hugely significant role during the war – from boosting morale to fighting in the trenches – and large numbers were killed or badly wounded.”
Wales as a country would suffer and would lose 40,000 men, some of them as young as 14. But it wasn’t just the wider community that was affected. Football paid its price. Wales lost some of its finest footballers such as Leigh Richmond Roose, who, at the time, was considered one of the best goalkeepers in the world.
A citation, printed in the London Gazette on September 21, 1916, says of Roose, “He managed to get back along the trench and, though nearly choked with fumes with his clothes burnt, refused to go to the dressing station. He continued to throw bombs until his arm gave out, and then, joining the covering party, used his rifle with great effect.”
Known for his grenade-launching due to his goalkeeping abilities, Roose was awarded the Military Medal for bravery. Not long afterwards, on the 7th October 1916, he lost his life, having been promoted to Lance Corporal in the last days of The Somme.
The war soon finished and soldiers returned home – among them footballers, who had gone from entertaining football supporters to fighting alongside them. In 1918, they returned home side by side.
What did the end of the Great War mean for Cardiff City?
One those returning home was Fred Keenor, who at one point wondered if things would ever get back to normal and he would resume his footballing career. But his nephew Graham reveals: “He took a serious leg injury from shrapnel at the Battle of the Somme, and doctors told him that he’d never be able to play again.
“But Fred had other ideas. He never knew when he was beaten.”
Keenor became an instrumental figure for the Bluebirds in the 1920s, and played in City’s first Football League fixture, where he was among the scorers in a 5-2 win over Stockport County at Edgeley Park. He then helped City to promotion in their first Football League campaign.
In the following few years he lead the Bluebirds up the table before they finished runners-up in the old First Division in the 1923/24 season. The club agonisingly lost out on goal average – of 0.024 to Huddersfield Town. A year later they reached the FA Cup Final for the first time, but lost 1-0 to Sheffield United.
They were so near, yet so far from winning their first silverware but Keenor said: “Just because we lost in our very first Cup Final, I don’t think there is any cause to get down in the mouth. I can say here and now that one day soon our followers can be sure that Cardiff City will bring that Cup to Wales.”
As we head towards May 2017 it is sure to be a special year amongst City fans young and old as the Bluebirds approach the 90th anniversary of when City won the FA Cup on the 23rd April 1927 – the last time the FA Cup was taken out of England.
With an exhibition of that 1-0 victory over Arsenal currently being held at Cardiff Library to celebrate City’s historical feat, we should remember that the triumph came not so long after the end of the First World War.
Peter Francis said this of the footballers who fought during WW1, “Their stories of heroism and sacrifice still speak to us – helping the Commission to reach new generations eager to discover the stories of those sporting heroes who gave so much on the field of battle a century ago.”
Cardiff City’s finest moment in history still acts as a reminder of genuine links to the war’s survivors and the ultimate sacrifice that their comrades and team-mates gave us.