This film of the 1911 FA Cup Final was made by the Warwick Trading Company, founded by Charles Urban soon after arriving in Britain in August 1897 as the British branch of the American firm Maguire and Baucus.  As Luke McKernan explains: “It was the leading film producer in Britain at the turn of the century, specialising in actuality, travel and reportage.”  But by the time this film was made Urban had left in 1903 to form his own Charles Urban Trading Company.  The company took its name...

This film of the 1911 FA Cup Final was made by the Warwick Trading Company, founded by Charles Urban soon after arriving in Britain in August 1897 as the British branch of the American firm Maguire and Baucus.  As Luke McKernan explains: “It was the leading film producer in Britain at the turn of the century, specialising in actuality, travel and reportage.”  But by the time this film was made Urban had left in 1903 to form his own Charles Urban Trading Company.  The company took its name when it located its offices in Warwick Court, London.  As well as producing its own films it also distributed the films of others.  Urban went on to publicise his strong belief in the importance of the educational value of film and leave a significant legacy in filmmaking – see the extensive work by Luke McKernan for a full account of his life and work (his website lists these, References).

It isn’t clear who was heading the company in 1911: between 1906 and 1909 it was Will Barker, and between 1913 and 1915 it was the naturalist photographer Cherry Kearton, after which the company went into receivership.  Nor is it known for sure whether Warwick Trading Company actually made this film or were simply distributing it for another film company.  The film isn’t on the list of Warwick Trading Company films of either the British Film Institute (BFI) catalogue or the internet movie data base (imdb).  The BFI have a copy of a film produced by Gaumont Graphic of this same match, but it is filmed from slightly different vantage points and contains different parts of the match - as well as being of inferior quality.

The 1911 FA Cup Final was an historic one as it had a new cup, which lasted until it was too fragile – now replaced by a replica.  The previous cup had been unofficially duplicated and so was withdrawn in July 1910.  Coincidentally, the new cup was manufactured in Bradford by Messrs Fattorini & Sons – it was sold at auction at Christie's in 2005 for £420,000 to David Gold, when he was still Chairman of Birmingham City (given the recent financial problems with West Ham United it is as well this was before he later become their joint Chairman).  The Old Trafford ground remains distinctly recognisable, with the raised pitch, despite the many changes over the years.

The FA Cup had already been in existence for 40 years by the time of this match, and as can be seen in the film it was extremely popular: there were over 69,000 at this first game at Crystal Palace, and 58,000 at the replay (with many still outside).  It looks too as though there were many spectators in the overlooking trees!  where finals were being held at that time.  Crystal Palace had been the main venue for the finals since 1895.  The only time it had been played elsewhere until then was when Spurs beat Sheffield Wednesday 3-1 in a replay at  Burnden Park (the home of Bolton Wanderers), in 1901.

Newcastle were favourites, this being their fifth final in seven years – of which they only managed to win one – and league champions three times.  For Bradford City, formed only eight years earlier in 1903, it is their one and only appearance in the final.  The gaol, a header by Jimmy Spears, came in the 15th minute.  The newspapers at the time reported it as being the result of a bad mistake by the Newcastle goalkeeper, Lawrence, and that the Bradford centre-forward Frank O'Rourke scored the goal – apparently O'Rourke was later honest enough to state that he didn’t get a touch on the ball.  A report of the game, with the line ups and how the teams progressed to the final can be found on the FA Cup Finals website.

In an age of non-English players in the English league, it is as well to note that eight of the eleven players in Bradford’s team were from Scotland (and one Irish).  Two of these were killed in the First World War: the goal scorer, Jimmy Speirs, who had won the Military Medal for bravery in the field (killed during the Battle of Passchendaele on 20 August 1917); and the man of the match central defender Robert Torrance (24th April 1918 at Ypres), whose body, like many others, was never found.  In all seven Bradford City players lost their lives in the war, including one Harry Potter (see the excellent history on the bantamspast website – The Bradford City Football Club Museum).  At the time of writing Bradford can boast on their books the first ever Asian to play in the Premiership, the defender Zesh Rehman, who, after playing for England at youth level, now plays for Pakistan.  But with a significant proportion of the Bradford population of Asian background – many of whom play football non-professionally – one might hope that this will increase.  Indeed, many see the lack of professional Asian footballers as a scandal that isn’t being sufficiently addressed by the footballing authorities (see Burdsey, References).

Interestingly, the internationalisation of football was already well underway at this time.  Just two months after this final, on 29th July 1911, a team from Mohun Bagan in Bengali beat the crack East Yorkshire Regiment 2-1 in Calcutta in front of 60,000 jubilant Indian supporters, scoring twice in the last five minutes (see the excellent book by David Goldblatt, p. 109-110, References).

Unfortunately, Bradford City will possibly be most well known to many for the terrible fire that happened at Valley Parade Stadium on the 11th May 1985 in game against Lincoln City.  A dropped cigarette and uncleared litter was all it took for the old wooden Edwardian stand to become completely engulfed in flames and smoke in only a few minutes.  In total 56 fans died.  It was a huge shock to the city that lives with many still to this day.  Coincidently, on the same day a 14-year-old boy died at Birmingham City’s ground, St Andrews, after a wall collapse when fighting between Birmingham and Leeds United fans were pushed against it by the police. Later that same month, on 29th, another tragedy struck when a wall also collapsed at the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels.

The subsequent enquiry, chaired by Sir Oliver Popplewell, looked at all three events, and this led to the Fire Safety and Safety of Places of Sport Act, of 1987, and the Football Spectators Act, 1989.  Then, on the 15th April 1989, another tragedy was to strike at Hillsborough when 96 Liverpool fans were crushed to death on the terraces at the Leppings Lane End during the F.A. Cup Semi Final match between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest.  The Taylor report which followed this – the ninth commissioned Inquiry into ground safety and crowd control at football matches in Britain – found that the main cause of the disaster was police "operational errors".  There has been a history of major incidents and disasters at British football grounds: the University of Leicester Factsheet on football stadia notes that there has been 27 separate incidents since 1900, claiming at least 306 lives, with a further 3,500 fans injured (References).  The responsibility of the police for crowd behaviour was made a principle in the wake of the invasion of the pitch at the first Wembley Cup final in 1923.

Even in this short film, it is possible to see how crowds behaved before the introduction of all seater stadiums as a result of the Taylor Report.  In particular, the crowd behind the goals would often fall forward, wavelike, when there was any goalmouth excitement, and many of those who would stand in this part of the ground would enjoy this, and even instigate it (not very good if holding a cup of hot Bovril – from personal experience!).  At the time of this film – and this can be witnessed in other films, like Rugby League Wartime Matches: Odsal Stadium, Bradford (1939-1944) – stadiums didn’t even have that many barriers.  Yet despite huge crowds packed into grounds very few, if any, major incidents can be solely attributed to bad fan behaviour.  If anything it is perhaps surprising that there haven’t been more disasters, but those who would like to bring back some standing areas to create a better atmosphere, would point out that standing in itself is not the problem, as long as other safety standards and measures are in place and fully implemented.

Although Bradford had just escaped going bankrupt, the tragedy came at a time when the club was on a high: they had just won the Third division title under Trevor Cherry, having got promotion from the fourth the Fourth division three years earlier, led by another former Bradford player, the world class Roy McFarland.  Following the tragedy Bradford City played their 'home' games at Huddersfield, Leeds and Odsal, Bradford.  A new modern stadium was opened in December 1986, when an England XI played City in an opening game.  Despite the enormous strain, and the controversial sacking of Trevor Cherry, Bradford managed to survive in Division Two until 1990.

Perhaps the most notable feature of the film, and of other old clips of football matches, is that it shows just how fast the game was played even then.  Clearly the high tempo for which the British game is renown has a long pedigree. 

Many things have changed however, one being the way football matches are filmed.  For a long time matches were filmed from the side of the pitch with a static frame before a big change came when cameras moved up into the terraces to show the whole field and followed the play.  This is as it remained with the only innovations being another camera behind the goal and slow motion action replays in the 1960s – Bryan Cowgill coined the term 'action replay' when he brought it into the BBC - buying the machine off the CBS - just prior to the 1966 World Cup.  The first football match to be screened live on television in the UK was by the BBC on 9th April 1938: a specially arranged friendly between Arsenal and Arsenal Reserves from Highbury (a bias of the BBC some might contend is retained to this day).  The BBC started showing highlights in the 1950s, in Soccer Special (where Kenneth [“they think it’s all over, it is now”] Wolstenholme cut his teeth), with Match of the Day starting in 1964.  The first live league games by both the BBC and ITV were in 1983, and both featured Spurs. 

The deal struck by between the FA Premier League and Rupert Murdoch's satellite sports channel Sky Sports gave a huge boost to the influence of TV on football.  Not all of this has been seen as beneficial (see British Football on Television, References).  Although it did lead to a quantum leap in the way football matches are filmed; inspiring, perhaps, the greatest football film, the marvellous Zidane: 21st century portrait, made by Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parreno using 17 cameras following the extraordinary French player throughout the ninety minutes of a game.

Another huge change is the wages players now enjoy, at least in the higher divisions.  Things were very different for members of the Bradford team in the FA cup final; for example, the Scottish midfielder Archie Devine, who joined Woolwich Arsenal in 1913 for the then huge fee of £1,300: when Archie hung up his boots he ended up working down a pit, and later on the docks at Rosyth.  But, as the great Dennis Law once said, “The only thing that has never changed in the history of the game is the shape of the ball.” (quoted in Goldblatt)

References

Daniel Burdsey, British Asians and football, Routledge, London, 2007.

David Goldblatt, The Ball is Round: A Global History of Football, Penguin, London, 2007.

Luke McKernan, ‘Putting the World Before You: The Charles Urban Story’, in Andrew Higson (editor), Young and Innocent: a History of Cinema in Britain, University of Exeter Press, 2002

Ephraim Katz (editor), The Macmillan International Film Encyclopedia, 4th edition, Macmillan, London, 2001.

Rachael Low, The History of the British Film: 1906-1914, George Allen and Unwin, London, 1949.

Martyn Smith, Match of the Day, BBC Books, 2004

Roger Smither, and Wolfgang Klaue (editors), Newsreels in Film Archives, Flick Books, Trowbridge, Wilts., 1996.

Luke McKernan, Charles Urban, Motion Picture Pioneer

FA cup finals website

bantamspast

University of Leicester, Sociology of Sport, Fact Sheet 2: Football Stadia After Taylor

University of Leicester, Sociology of Sport, Fact Sheet 8: British Football on Television

Asian football network

Times Online, Why are there no Asian football stars?

The Replayed Cup Final on Movietone