The “White Horse” FA Cup Final that Nearly Broke Wembley
Building the first Wembley Stadium in 1923 was the easy part. Getting the fans in for the 48th FA Cup final proved more of a challenge.
“The field had been churned up so bad by horses and the crowd that had been on the pitch well before the game”
As the clock struck 3 pm on April 28th, 1923, referee DH Asson should have been poised to blow his whistle to mark kick-off for the first-ever FA Cup final at Wembley Stadium.
But the likelihood of seeing any football played at this time was a mere pipedream.
The match was in jeopardy of being canceled. In reality, at around 3 p.m, a policeman mounted on a white horse was attempting to disperse an army of 10,000 fans who spilled over from the packed-out stands on to the newly laid Wembley turf. This would become the defining image of the afternoon and eventually became enshrined in FA Cup history.
Wembley Stadium (then the Empire Stadium) opened its doors for the first time ever that afternoon. After 300 days of building, investment of £750,000, and 25,000 tons of concrete laid, the pristine stadium, lauded as the home of English sport and which boasted unobstructed views for every attendee, was ready to host its first FA Cup final just four days after completion.
Things didn’t run smoothly though. Expectant fans arrived from all corners of the country and gathered outside the stadium prior to kick-off and the situation soon became clear — there were too many fans for the 127,000 capacity.
While the first 60,000 or so spectators entered smoothly, it wasn’t long before the remaining mass overturned ringside fences, scaled the outer walls of the stadium, and tumbled one of the main gates, desperate to get a glimpse of the action.
The official attendance for the 1923 FA Cup final is 126,047, but the true figure is believed to be anywhere between 150,000 and 300,000.
“I was Literally Pushed to the Ground”
Despite both teams averaging home attendances of around 20,000 for the season, the extreme bumper crowd for the 1923 FA Cup final was an irregularity.
Yet the culmination of West Ham being the first London club ever to reach the cup final and the opening of the new national stadium in London drew many casual fans to North West London to watch the match. If the match took place in previous venues, such as the Kennington Oval or Crystal Palace, there may not have been so many who would have been willing to travel.
Two very un-British anomalies also took place on April 28th, 1923 to add to the numbers. It was a glorious, perfectly sunny day to enjoy watching a football match, and the trains, which connected many parts of London and the country to the Wembley, ran perfectly smoothly, allowing many to arrive in plenty of time before kick-off.
The gates at Wembley opened at 11 am, allowing early spectators to enter calmly and take their seats. As the time edged closer to kick-off, tens of thousands of fans gradually grew to hundreds of thousands outside the stadium, bustling to get closer to the entrance gates. By 1:45, the gates were ordered to close to prevent over-filling the stadium.
West Ham fan, George Kerr, who attended the game, explained how the closure of the gates simply led to fans finding alternative routes into the stadium: “I saw the turnstiles had been built into wooden structures that were about 8 feet high, the turnstiles themselves were locked and deserted but bodies were climbing over them like monkeys and I quickly followed suit… I got behind the crowd and soon was being pushed forward by others who got behind me. I was literally pushed into the ground.”
Estimations after the game suggest that the majority of the fans hailed from East London and other areas of the country, while only 5,000 spectators traveled from Bolton to the match.
The match eventually began around 45 minutes after 3 p.m. A combination of the players pleading for fans to make their way back off the pitch, a reinforced police presence, and the arrival of King George V, which supposedly changed the atmosphere to uplifting and spirited with spontaneous outbursts of “God Save the King” ringing around the ground, helped to usher the crowds back just far enough from the touchline for play to commence.
The Match: Caught Up in the Crowd
The compact crowd was still able to physically influence the game. Stoppages were frequent with players having to wait for the police to clear the crowds before they could muster enough space to run up to take corners and throw-ins.
Despite the tough playing conditions, the match continued and Bolton led after two minutes as the Trotter’s winger, David Jack, made history by scoring the first-ever goal at Wembley stadium when he fired past Hammers keeper Ted Hutton.
It was a goal was perhaps less deserving of such an accolade but more of a fortuitous event. Jack found plenty of space to run into after West Ham defender, Jack Tresadern, found himself on the wrong side of the crowd when heading towards the touchline to get the ball back for a throw. He struggled to force his way through the melee of fans but probably had a great spectator’s view of Jack’s maiden Wembley goal.
The match was then halted after 13 minutes as the crowd entered the pitch once more and the police spent 10 minutes clearing enough space beyond the touchline for the match to continue.
Bolton held on 1–0 to half time with West Ham wasting a number of clear-cut chances in the first half. There was little respite for either side at the break. Both teams remained on the pitch for a five-minute interval and quickly swapped ends. There was no clear route to the changing rooms due to the swollen crowd.
Eight minutes after half time, Bolton doubled their lead when Joe Smith became another history-maker, becoming the first Scotsman to score at Wembley after he smashed a volley against the underside of the bar and into the net past Hutton to make it 2–0.
No more chances of note were made in the game, largely due to the mass of spectators interrupting play and, counterintuitively, the sheer number of West Ham fans prevented their team from making progress.
The 1922-23 West Ham team relied on the width and pace of their wingers, Jimmy Ruffell and Victor Watson, but the closeness of the fans, predominantly Hammers supporters, and the decimated Wembley turf obliterated by police horses, prevented any progress for the East Londoners out wide.
Ruffell himself admitted the conditions played against West Ham: “It was a hard game for West Ham to play as the field had been churned up so bad by horses and the crowd that had been on the pitch well before the game. West Ham made a lot of the wings and you just couldn’t run them for the crowd that were right up close to the line.”
Bolton won the game and lifted their first FA Cup in front of their estimated 5,000 fans who made the 200-mile trip from the North West while the hundreds of thousands of East Londoners left disappointed.
Different conditions may have suited West Ham on the day and the course of FA Cup history could be completely different as the East Londoners had to wait over 40 years before the first lifted the trophy.
Legacy: “White Horse Bridge”
Ultimately, the first Wembley FA Cup final was less about the football and more about the crowd problems, which overshadowed the stop-start action on the pitch. There were nearly 1000 injuries on the day and people who paid for their tickets were unable to get to their seats. The event was discussed in the House of Commons where, then Home Secretary, William Bridgeman, praised the work of the police to contain the overflowing crowds.
Nearly 100 years on, rather than any honors, plaques, or commemorations for the players or managers who took part in the landmark game at Wembley, the only lasting memorabilia is the “White Horse Bridge” — a pedestrian bridge crossing over the tracks at Wembley Stadium Station — named in memory of Billie the horse who helped clear the crowds so the action could take place that afternoon.
A fitting tribute to the most bizarre FA Cup final that nearly broke Wembley in its first week of existence.⬧
