RAICH CARTER HONEYMOON

In the month of May, it's a bit too easy to write about the FA Cup Finals, but it has got to be done, just for the record. You will know of course that the first Cup Finals were held at the end of the "season". Prior to the Football League being formed in 1888, the FA chose the Spring dates, namely March. 

From 1872, the first time the cup was contested, the Finals were played in mid-March (eg March 16th for the first Final). By 1880, the Clapham Rovers v Oxford University tie was played on April 10th and the Old Carthusians played their 3-0 winning final in 1881, over the Old Etonians, on April 9th. 

For the next few years, the finals fluctuated around mid-March and early April. By 1895, with more football being played, the Final was set around mid-April (eg April 20th Aston Villa 1 v WBA 0). By 1937 the length of the Football League programme had nibbled into April and so the Final was pushed back to May 1st; Sunderland beat PNE 3-1. 

Horatio Stratton Carter married his fiancee, Rose, on the last Monday of April 26th in 1937 in Derby. She was a long lost school friend. Immediately after the wedding, he and best man, Bobby Gurney, had to leave the reception to join up with their Sunderland team mates in the Bushey Hall Hotel, Watford, where the team was preparing for the FA Cup Final. Raich saw Rose for a few hours then captained and scored for Sunderland in his team's first FA Cup Final triumph. He received the cup from The Queen (to us the Queen Mother, as was), who said to him that the cup and occasion was a nice present for him. Raich Carter, as he was commonly known, had a FA Cup winner's medal, scored a goal in the FA Cup Final, a League Champion's medal, from the season before, had played for his country and got a wife. He was 23 years old. 

The famous Tommy Lawton said that Carter shot the ball as if he hated both the ball and goalkeeper.

Millwall became the first Division Three (South) side to reach the semi-finals of the Cup, losing to Sunderland  2-1 at Huddersfield's ground. Millwall finished eighth in their division that season. 

He played football for Derby County, Hull and England,13 times and also for Derbyshire at cricket in 1946.

Carter kept some of his England shirts, removed the badge pocket, and used them for cricket. Wages were not so lucrative in those days! Here's Raich celebrated on the Blue House pub wall in Sunderland.