This month marks the centenary of the first FA Cup final to be held at Wembley between West Ham Utd and Bolton Wanderers, a day that nearly ended in disaster. twoht
Has the FA Cup final been devalued by its semi-finals being played at Wembley? It’s not a question with a completely black-and-white answer. On the one hand, there seems little question that playing there no longer holds quite so much mystique. But that could be a result of the over-saturation of the game in the media as anything else.
In the 1901 census, the population of Wembley was just 4,159. It was an outpost, only connected to the Metropolitan Line since 1893. But with that station opening came the start of a grander project. Sir Edwin Watkin was an MP and railway entrepreneur, and his plan was to combine Wembley Park, which had been designed by Humphry Repton a century earlier, with a tower inspired by the Eiffel Tower in Paris which would dominate the city’s skyline from the north.
It was tight whether they’d be able to get the new stadium completed in time for the 1923 FA Cup final between Bolton Wanderers and West Ham United, but remarkably the stadium was completed with just enough room to spare. And no-one quite knew what to expect.
When the gates were closed, fans both with and without tickets sought other ways of getting inside the stadium, scaling walls and fences and turnstiles. Kick-off had to be delayed until 3.45pm, and the police had to get involved to try and keep fans off the pitch, a task that became practically impossible after a gate was broken down at 2.15pm and fans started to pour in, forcing those who’d got there early onto the track surrounding the pitch.
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