ITS A MAY DAY NOW

Tomorrow's FA Cup Final is being held on May 18th. We have become accustomed to May being Cup Final month. However the length of the Football season is now longer and there are other distractions such as the League Cup and European football which has added more games. They all have to be fitted in! In the early days of the FA Cup, from 1872, finals were played as early as March 11th in 1876, when The Wanderers drew with the Old Etonians 1-1 and then met again on the 18th with the Wanderers winning 3-0.

In 1880, Clapham Rovers met Oxford University on April 10th at the Oval and won 1-0. The next year the Old Carthusians beat the Old Etonians 3-0 on April 9th.

Finals went back to March for a few years until 1895 when Aston Villa beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 1-0 on April 20th. Five months later the Villa lost the cup when it was stolen from a local jewellers' shop where it had been on show. April was the popular month for the final.

In 1937 when Sunderland beat Preston North End 3-1 at Wembley they played on May 1st with a crowd of over 93,000. Cup Final dates were creeping towards the end of April and by 1952 it was May 3rd when the Cup Final was won by Newcastle United who beat Arsenal 1-0, with a goal scored by George Robledo, whose brother Ted also played, both Chilean internationals.
Winston Churchill watched the game and presented the trophy to , United's captainJoe Harvey, the first Prime Minister to do so.
This victory was the first time that a club won the cup on successive years (1951 they beat Stanley Matthew's Blackpool 2-0). The final was then played within the first week of May until 1963 when Manchester United beat Leicester City on May 25th. In 1964 the final was played on May 2nd-West Ham beat Preston 3-2. In 1969 Manchester City beat Leicester City 1-0 on April 26th. In 1970 Chelsea beat Leeds United 2-1 in a replay on April 29th, after a 2-2 on April 11th. It has been a May event since.

I watched the 1984 Final in Christchurch, New Zealand when Everton beat Watford 2-0. It was ON May 19th and I watched it at 1.30 am. Elton was very much on show. Watford had climbed from Division 4 to the First Division in 5 seasons under Elton and Graham Taylor's control.  Six weeks later Elton was back at Wembley, playing a concert.
Tomorrow he is playing  at another concert  in front of thousands in Copenhagen and will miss the big game. His two sons will lead the team out.
The last time Watford beat City was 1989 1-0 in Division 2. The first time they played each other was in September 1982 in League Division 1 when City won 1-0. Watford got they own back 2-0 in the return fixture on January 3rd. City have registered 17 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses since they first met.