Not an FA Cup winners' corner flag!
Taken for granted, the corner flag on a pole is a necessity to any game of football. It marks out the extremities of the pitch and has done that since 1863 when the laws were set by the FA.
Included also, were flags on poles planted four yards either side of the goal posts, on the goal line (as you would see in Aussie Rules) but only 5 feet high, as now. The central poles marked the goal and the side poles were there to help award a "rouge" which was a like a try.
If the ball didn't go through the goal but was touched down through the side gaps then this counted as a "rouge", worth a "point" and the number of points came into play when there was a tie on goals. The rouge was established by the Etonians in their own game.
In 1868 the Sheffield Rules got rid of the "rouge" opting instead for a goal kick or a corner kick when the ball went out of play behind the goal line. The FA bowed to the Sheffield Rules in 1872 and adopted the corner and flag, also marking a quadrant one yard in radius set in 1875.
Some times there are flags place one yard off the touchline at the half way line to help the referee with "where is the half way line" decisions!
Clubs that have won the FA Cup are entitled to have a triangular flag on their poles. Otherwise it is a square flag allowed to blow in the wind. I'm not sure anyone takes any notice of this!
I am sure that when there was a corner the majority of the ball had to be inside the quadrant? Now the ball overlaps the line of the quadrant by centimetres!
The small markings on the goal line and touchline to make sure defending players don't encroach closer than 10 yards at a corner are measured from the quadrant line of course.
Corners were regarded as "indirect" until June 1924, so direct goals could not be scored direct from a corner until then. Along came Billy Alston of St Bernards FC, who scored the first legal "direct from a corner goal" in August 1924.
What about W.H. (Billy) Smith of Huddersfield Town, who scored direct from a corner kick against Arsenal? In August 1924, in the Football League; the flood gates were open!
Town won 4-0 and later won the League Championship. Smith made 574 apps for Town and scored 126 goals, one directly...well you know that....
Smith got himself sent off for fighting against a Stoke player in a league match and this caused him to be banned from played in the 1920 FA Cup Final; Town lost 1-0 to Aston Villa.
In the 1922 FA Cup Final at Stamford Bridge, Billy scored twice against Preston NE, one a disputed penalty, won by Smith, whom newsreel confirmed, was fouled outside the penalty area. Smith also scored twice in his last game ever v Sheffield Utd in February 1934.
He then player-managed at Rochdale for a while, 1934-5.
Born in Tantobie, County Durham in 1895, he died in 1951, from cancer following an "injury" in the game, which resulted in a leg amputation. His son, Conway, played at Town between 1945-51 and his grandson, Robert, played in the last ever game at Leeds Road in 1994.
Billy also played for England three times between 1922-8. Both Billy and Conway are recorded as scoring 100 goals each in their career.
Willie Davies scored for Cardiff City in the final minute of the FA Cup Rd 4 tie against Leicester City in March 1925, making it 2-1. Cardiff went on the lose in the final to Sheffield Utd.
Thank heavens, the corner post is a flexible thing and not the solid wooden specimen of past seasons, some were square and with dangerous edges! Tosh Chamberlain, a bandy legged Fulham left winger, was renowned for sometimes kicking the flag pole when taking a corner and there have been others who push the post on an angle to allow a full bodied approach, or even pull the pole out of the ground. Referees would stop play and put the flag back into the perpendicular.
Tosh was a real character who postponed his wedding so that he could play for Fulham against Newcastle Utd in a 4th Round FA Cup tie, in which he scored a hat trick but Fulham lost 4-5! he played almost his entire career at Fulham and went to Dover and then Gravesend before he retired.
When Barry Fry was manager of Birmingham City in 1993 he had not won more than two games in fifteen during his first 3 months. Finding that a local "Romany" family had cursed the ground way back, he had the curse removed, by getting a local Romany to pee on each corner post and without taking the "piss", his team began to gain success, winning the next 7 out of 10.
Thank heavens, the corner post is a flexible thing and not the solid wooden specimen of past seasons, some were square and with dangerous edges! Tosh Chamberlain, a bandy legged Fulham left winger, was renowned for sometimes kicking the flag pole when taking a corner and there have been others who push the post on an angle to allow a full bodied approach, or even pull the pole out of the ground. Referees would stop play and put the flag back into the perpendicular.
Tosh was a real character who postponed his wedding so that he could play for Fulham against Newcastle Utd in a 4th Round FA Cup tie, in which he scored a hat trick but Fulham lost 4-5! he played almost his entire career at Fulham and went to Dover and then Gravesend before he retired.
When Barry Fry was manager of Birmingham City in 1993 he had not won more than two games in fifteen during his first 3 months. Finding that a local "Romany" family had cursed the ground way back, he had the curse removed, by getting a local Romany to pee on each corner post and without taking the "piss", his team began to gain success, winning the next 7 out of 10.
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