11/11/2007 by leo.

The first mention I can find of Cheltenham Town in the FA Cup results was for the 1914-5 tournament. However, this was the shortest lived of all cup runs – with no result recorded, and both ourselves and our opponents, Trowbridge Town managing to get disqualified without reaching the next round.

In this article, most of our matches are in either the Extra Preliminary Round (XP) or the Preliminary Round (P) – there were then a number of further qualifying rounds (1Q, 2Q, etc) before the first round proper.

With war intervening, it was not until 1919 that Cheltenham finally got a result on the board – not a particularly inspiring result, being as it was a 4-0 defeat at Chippenham Town. For the next decade or so, entry to the cup was patchy, results even more so. In 1920, we got through XP after a 2-2 draw with Melksham & Avon United, due to our opponents being disqualified, but then lost in PR at home to Trowbridge by 3-1. The following season we fell to XP defeat at home to Devizes, while in 1922-3 – the season of the first Wembley final, we were missing from the competition. This may have been because we had just entered the newly formed Gloucestershire Northern Senior League, which had finally brought organised football to this area. Up to this point, teams in the area played in a number of local leagues, such as the Cheltenham league. Each league had a limited number of teams, but many clubs competed in more than one league, leading to frequent chaos with the fixtures.

We were back at XP in 1925, when Union Jack (Bristol) continued our run of defeats, the score was 3-6, so maybe it was not a surprise we gave 1926 a miss – returning in ‘27 to lose the XP 3-5 at home to Warminster. Still, our league form was improving – as we became the dominant team in the league for the next few years, although we recorded only one title, compared to four runners-up positions. But although 1928-9 was the championship year for Cheltenham, it was a double disappointment in the cup, as we were drawn away to play Gloucester, and still lost, this time 2-1 (XP) – Gloucester went out 1-0 at Spencer Moulton, two weeks later. The next two seasons went by without Cheltenham entering the FA Cup. Finally, on 5 September 1931, at the start of our last season in the Northern Senior League, we went to J.S. Fry & Company, at the chocolate company’s grounds in Keynsham and won an FA Cup (XP) match – not only that, we won it 5-0. This only kept us in the competition for two weeks, after which we travelled to Kingswood and lost 2-0, but it was a start.

In 1932, we moved into the Birmingham Combination, a professional league requiring far more travelling. We had a successful first season, finishing 3rd behind Redditch and Birmingham ‘A’, while our reserves replaced the first team in the Northern Senior and won the title. Perhaps in view of the greater commitment to league games, we did not enter the FA Cup. As it was, this was the final season in which we did not enter. The following season, we started the league campaign with a 3-0 home win against Atherstone, but then lost midweek at Aggborough in the Worcestershire Senior Cup. The second Saturday of the season brought Mount Hill Enterprise to Whaddon Road for an FA Cup game (XP). We won 2-0 with goals from Horace Payne and George Knight. Two weeks later, it was down to Bristol to play St. Phillips Athletic, and a Reg Smith goal gave us a draw and a home replay (which was played the following Wednesday, late afternoon – no floodlights then). Smith got a hat-trick as we won 5-0. So it was into 1Q, when Western League side Street came to Whaddon Road and lost 4-0. Then to Pennydarren Park, to play Merthyr Town. The former football league club, now playing in the Southern League had drawn with QPR in the previous season’s first round – Roy Hill and Harold Yarwood scored a brace apiece as we won 4-2. It turned out to be the Welsh team’s last ever FA Cup match – they folded at the end of the season. Another Southern League club in Wales in 3Q – Llanelly, (they changed the name to Llanelli in 1960). A 2-2 draw in Wales (George Knight, Horace Payne) led to 3000 people at Whaddon Road on a Wednesday afternoon, (1st November, so kick off surely could not be later then around 3pm). Despite Harold Yarwood’s goal, the Welshmen won 2-1.

But that was not the end of it – the FA found out that Llanelly had played ineligible players in both matches, so Calne and Harris United made the trip to Cheltenham in 4Q. Calne were a relatively minor team, (playing below Western League level at that time) and had reached this round with a series of relatively local home wins, beating Devizes 3-0, Frome Town 5-2, Radstock 2-1, and Clandown 3-1. On the 11th November they met their match, with 5000 in Whaddon Road to see Harold Yarwood score four times, George Knight and Roy Hill two each, George Blackburn and Fred Hazard one each, as Cheltenham marched into the competition proper with a 10-1 win.

Serious stuff now, even if it was a home match against non-league opposition. Barnet had won the Athenian League in both 1931 and 32, and were to reach the semi-final of the Amateur Cup in the following spring. Such a reputation seems to have been lost on Cheltenham, as Payne (2), Knight (2) and Yarwood led us to a 5-1 win, and then the longest trip imaginable – to play Third Division (North) club Carlisle at Brunton Park. If the majority of the 7347 crowd expected to see Carlisle win, then they were wrong, Cheltenham went home with a 2-1 victory, Reg Smith and a Bradley own goal doing the trick. So a club that had only win in 7 previous FA Cup attempts, now had 7 wins in one. All good things come to an end, though and Blackpool, relegated from Division One the following season came not to Whaddon Road, but the larger Athletic grounds, 10,389 came to watch, and Horace Payne who had scored the first FA Cup goal of the campaign also got the last, with Blackpool winning 3-1.

The following season was to be the last with our first team in the Birmingham Combination, before we moved on to 50 years in the Southern League, we played only one more FA Cup game, and again lost at home. This time, at 4Q our opponents were Barry, and we lost 4-2.

Early data from Tony Brown and www.thefa.com – post 1932 data courtesy of Keith Iles and Roger Knapp.

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11/11/2007 by leo.

There are few places where the line between Sports and Politics is more blurred than in the republic of Ireland. At the centre of this is the Gaelic Athletic Association. The association was formed in 1884, roughly the same time as the different sports organisations were being organised in the rest of Britain, (all Ireland being under British rule at the time), with the specific purpose of promoting games of Irish origin. The original intention was to re-establish an ancient sports event, the Tailteann Games and if this had stayed the main focus, Gaelic games would have become singular atheltics events, a cross between the common international athletics meetings and the highland games. However, the focus was soon changed to the two major Irish field sports, Football and Hurling, (Gaelic Rounders is also promoted, this is a sport much closer to the American baseball than the British rounders games you may remember from schooldays). As with sports in Britain, prior to organisation, there were a number of variants of any sport, with the rules changing from institution to institution. By laying down a common set of rules, it became possible for the games to move beyond single communities and for competitions to take place between different counties. Naturally, other areas of progress in the last 19th century also helped this progress – the development of transportation (the railways and better roads) to enable the teams to meet, and the changes to working hours bought about by the industrial revolution.

It is worth noting, considering the directions the organisation took within 30 years of being founded, that one of the GAA’s founding fathers was a capped International at Rugby, and a member of the Royal irish Constabulary, while another became the father of a cabinet member in theBritish government. As the question of Irish identity became one of nationalism and independence, so the GAA quickly became an organisation that not only shunned British sports, but actually legislated against them. The organisation was always unashamedly Catholic in nature, but would never prohibit members of other demoniations or religions from participating. Most games, anyway were played on Sundays, which has always ruled out the participation of those protestants who took their religion seriously.

As early as 1886, the rules of the GAA banned members of the British military and the British Police forces in Ireland from taking part in Gaelic sports, a ban that was not lifted until 2001 – and then only with much controversy in Ireland. Another rule banned GAA players from particpating in, or even watching other sports (this was lifted in 1971), while the ban on GAA premises being used for non-Gaelic sports lasted much longer. The words non-Gaelic really meant British, as the headquarters of Gaelic sport, Croke Park was used for a Boxing match in 1972 (Mohamed Ali won) and two American football matches in 1996 and 1997.

The worst of all events at the stadium took place on 21st November 1920. On the morning of that day, a series of attacks by members of the Irish Republican movement, killed 14 British Intelligence Officers around the city of Dublin. That afternoon, a football match was taking place at Croke Park between Dublin and Tipperary. Members of the British Army’s Auxiliary division entered the ground and shot indiscriminately into the crowd. Thirteen spectators, and the captain of the Tipperary team, Michael Hogan were killed.

The Croke Park of today is somewhat different to stadium of 1920. It was essentially rebuilt in the 1990s. The stadium today has three sides of a uniform, three tiered stand. These are everything that you would expect of a modern stadium. The upper and lower tiers present unhindered views of the pitch. Sandwiched between these are the VIP areas, business lounges, and the like.

Sitting uncomfortably against this modern and concrete edifice sits Hill 16. A low slung area, which can still be used as a standing area for the Gaelic games. While most of the stadium sits under arching roofs, Hill 16 is open to the elements. While I was there, this area was converted to seating, and one small section of it was used by the away fans.

Much of the cash for the modernisation of the stadium came from the public purse; so of course is the money for the rebuilding of the Landsdowne Road Stadium, the home of Rugby and more recently football in the Republic. The FA of Ireland has now given up its plans to have a big and expensive stadium of its own, and will go along with sharing Landsdowne Road for the foreseeable future. There is still a considerable volume of opinion that would not rebuild the old ground, currently a heap of rubble on the ground, and move all sports into Croke Park permanently – but that requires the same type of logic as would have been required to make Twickenham into London’s main stadium for all sports. (And do not forget that in addition to Twickenham and Wembley, an improbably expensive Olympic stadium is currently about to be built within five miles of Arsenal’s new Ashburton Grove facility, and yet both Spurs and West Ham are talking of starting fresh ventures of their own).

It has taken a lot of political effort to get other sports into Croke Park. It was only a few years ago that the GAA voted against lifting the ban, and hence put an end to a proposed Celtic bid (Ireland, Scotland and maybe Wales) for a European Championship. Now a mixture of Government money, and a sum of over £1 million per match has persuaded the doors to open for other sports. Still the agreement is only a temporary one – the GAA have only agreed to five Rugby matches (two seasons worth of six nations championship matches), and four Football games (now all completed in the current run of qualification of Euro 2008). In fact, two more six nations series, and most of not all of the qualification for the next World Cup will have to take place before the new Landsdowne Road is ready. Assuming they accept these matches, there is a chance they could be offered the chance to play a major European club final in the city as well.

On arriving at the stadium, a few things surprised me. One is the fact that GAA pitches are significantly larger than those for Soccer and Rugby, so the playing area is marked out on the middle of the green with a very wide expanse of green all around. Secondly the lower tier of seats are arranged not a direct rake, but a gently concave one. The lowest seats are down close to pitch level, but some 20 yards from the action. They also go into the corners, some 20 beyond the goal lines. The front rows of the lower tier are also far forward of the leading edge of the roof, so if it was a wet night, (as it happens, it wasn’t), the spectators here would know about it.

In a stadium like this, where the best views, (apart from the VIPs and corporate areas) were to be had from the upper tier, or at least the upper reaches of the lower tier, I suppose I should not have been surprised to find that only two price ranges existed, and by buying the more expensive tickets, I seemed to have been given the worst view in the house, (two rows back, lower tier and well behind the goal line). Fortunately, the ground was far from full – but this was the only time I have ever ‘sneaked’ into the cheaper seats!

As for the match, it was better than I expected. The opposition, Cyprus may be one of the lesser teams of Europe, but they came to the match to win, and played the ball around in a controlled and confident manner. The Irish on the other hand, played a game of hoof and hope, and rarely held onto possession for more than a couple of kicks. Cyprus really deserved to win, and went ahead with just over ten minutes to go. The Irish did fight until the end, and gained the equaliser in injury time. Even so, the crowd was making their displeasure known, and manager Steve Staunton took the blame for the result (part of a series that left them well short of qualification), and was sacked before the week was out.

Posted in The European Game, Political Footballs | 1 Comment »