FA Cup Finals don’t always delight the eye, but yesterday’s Wembley encounter between Arsenal and Chelsea did the job. The better team won, which always helps if you’re a neutral, and the occasion as a whole expressed its sympathy for Manchester, another great football city, in an apt and moving fashion. This was an all-London final and it was pleasing that it reflected well on the city.
I watched the match at home and at half-time did some swift research on previous FA Cup Finals featuring two London teams. There have been fewer than I’d expected – only five, which is surprising given that a London team, Clapham Rovers, first appeared in one in 1880. A bigger surprise was learning that the very first all-London final was recent enough for me to have watched it too on TV, in black and white.
That was 50 years ago, in 1967, and Chelsea were involved in that contest too. Sadly for the Blues, the result was the same for them as yesterday’s – a 2-1 defeat – although on that occasion Tottenham were the victors. The match was billed, inevitably, as the Cockney Cup Final. Here’s how Pathé News covered it for cinema audiences, in glorious technicolour. Enjoy those half-time faces in the Wembley crowd.
Those six “cockney cup finals” in full:
- 1967 – Tottenham 2 Chelsea 1.
- 1975 – West Ham 2 Fulham 0.
- 1980 – West Ham 1 Arsenal 0.
- 1982 – Tottenham 1 Queens Park Rangers 1. Replay: 1-0.
- 2002 – Arsenal 2 Chelsea 0.
- 2017 – Arsenal 2 Chelsea 1.
All of them took place at the old Wembley stadium except the 2002, which was held at the Millennium stadium in Cardiff while the new Wembley was being built.
The 1967 final ticket stub show above and other memorabilia from that match are on sale on eBay.