Manchester City put aside Sheffield United this evening in the FA Cup Semi-Final, 3-0. Bit of a mismatch but the question is; Is Manchester City the best club ever? Here are the City's results against The Blades from City's formation in March 1893:
The Liverpool Football Echo, on April 21st 1906, reported that the English Cup Final had been held at The Crystal Palace, with an immense crowd of 75,609, packing the stadium to witness Everton play Newcastle United, when, at last, the cup went to the city of Liverpool.The report was sent by "Spire Wire" and the growing popularity of football was finally recognised, with no radio, "Sports' Report" was available at the time, but only as newspaper reports.
It might have been a wait until Sunday morning or even Monday, when the "Athletic News" appeared to report the Saturday results. Liverpool was the first city to launch the "Football Echo" as early as 1901. The city's two clubs, Liverpool and Everton, had both won the League Championship (First and top division in those days) with 40,000 or more watching the two Merseyside clubs.
The inside pages of news of the paper were printed already and when the results came out, they were included in the outside pages, at the last minute. Scores were telegraphed to the Echo's office and the race began to get the paper onto the street corners as quickly as possible.
In 1906, Liverpool became the first city to produce both the FA Cup winner and First Division League title holder in the same season. Liverpool won the League title from Preston and Everton, having beaten Liverpool at Aston Villa in the semi-final of the Cup, went on to win the FA Cup.
Everton's victory over Newcastle in the final served as a perfect example of how reports were wired back to the "office". The type set for the match was done in preparation and the report of the game written minute by minute to hasten the publication. Messengers wired the minute report to the "Echo's Office" and compositors would begin the typeset the one setence text on to the page so that once the final whistle was blown, printing could begin.
Details of the match would often get lost deep in the text, for example, the winning goal scored by Sandy Young, did not occur until near the end of the report at 4.55pm:
IT READ...."At last a goal, Sandy Young the hero. Fireworks and minature (sic) earthquakes in galore-shades of San Francisco (actually this disaster happened the week before). Not the greatest way of a minute by minute sporting event but at the time it served the purpose of getting the news and all the results on to the streets as quickly as possible. Two of Lancashire's most celebrated sportsmen helped Everton win the FA Cup for the first time. They were Jack Sharp and Harry Makepeace (below). They had both played full international games for England at football and cricket. (apparently there have only been 12 players to achieve this accolade). Sharp was a right winger and Makepeace, a half back.
Between them, for Lancashire CCC, they had scored nearly 80 hundreds! Makepeace had won an FA Cup winner's medal, a League Championhsip medal (1915), a cricket Championship medal (actually four!) and played for England at both football and cricket.
Sharp provided the cross from which Young scored the winning goal, fifteen minutes from the end. The Magpies lost the final at Crystal Palace for the second year running, having been beaten by Aston Villa 2-0 in 1905; 101,117 watched this earlier disappointment.
AND
On 21st April 1990, player-manager Ian Bowyer and his son Gary were in the Hereford team for their Division 4 match at Scunthorpe. It was the first time a father and son had player together in the League since 1951. Gary scored his first ever League goal in the 3-3 draw while former European Cup winner, Ian, turned out in just one more League match before retiring from playing.
When Queen of the South made a substitution in the 87th minute, it wasn't just any normal change.
Instead it led to a Scottish senior football first, as a father and son ended up playing for the same team on the same pitch.Willie Gibson, player-manager for the Palmerston Park club, had subbed himself on in the second half of their League One match against FC Edinburgh. And with three minutes to go and the Doonhamers cruising 4-0, Gibson ordered for his son, Lewis, also a winger, to be brought on for the final few moments.
