Clive - The 'Other' 1923 FA Cup Final Horse

The 1923 FA Cup Final is remembered for many things; it was the first final at the all new Empire Stadium at Wembley, 900 people were injured due to the over-capacity crowd, Bolton's second goal was given as, in the opinion of the ref, the ball had crossed the line and rebounded off a spectator (yeah, suck that one up, Hawkeye!). Finally, there was a Horse named Billie.

Crowd estimates for the day ranged between 150-300,000, despite the official figure being just over 126,000. Due to the large number of people, mounted police had to step in and at that point, Billie the grey horse (yes, he wasn't white afterall) took centre stage, herding the masses in a manner which would now be referred to as 'bossing it'.

Due to the prominent role he played, the final became known as the White Horse Final and in 2005, the footbridge near the new Wembley would be named after him after a public vote.

It could all have been so different, however!


Also on duty that day was Clive. Clive, a black horse considered himself a bit of an also ran, often literally.

In the years before that infamous Cup Final, he had tried his hand at many things...Horse Racing (or 'racing' as it was known in the equine community), which he'd found rather tiring and repetitive, a summer stint on Blackpool's sea front and finally as a labourer, working a plough on the local farm.

But Clive dreamed of bigger things! He'd seen some early cowboy films and was convinced that was where his future lay...not with a man in chaps on his back, but in the movies! He got himself an agent, which was kind of hard to do, and landed a few walk on parts in countryside documentaries, but it was all small stuff. His agent told him to get exposure, so he landed a role as the face of a joke shop. He died a little every time he saw his gurning face alongside the inevitable 'long face' pun-based caption, but it was necessary he told himself...all to the greater good.

As with all jobbing actors, Clive had a secondary job to pay the bills and his chosen career was crowd control. It was easy money. Get suited and booted and just stand around...there was the occasional Geordie trying to land a punch, but he was the bigger man...literally. In early 1923, he spotted an ad in the 'Horse Bouncer' trade publication for qualified "crowd management executives" for an upcoming sporting event. The ad stated applicants must look good in front of a camera. Clive had heard about the new stadium being built in London and put 2 and 2 together. He galloped down to the big smoke and was immediately offered a job.

The big day arrived and Clive rocked up to Wembley with high hopes. He was going to be on the news reels! Then his first disappointment landed. He'd been assigned the deputy role; the lead being taken by some poncey grey bloke called Billie, which is a girl's name, Clive muttered under his strangely fresh & minty breath.

Clive at Wembley in 1923...apparently...

Once out on the field, it was clear this was going to be a large task, but Clive knew he was up to it...and what's more, he'd already seen the film cameras. Unfortunately, so had Billie and, abusing his rank, constantly ordered Clive off to other parts of the ground, whenever they were pointed his way.

At the end of the day, a tired and dejected Clive clopped off home, downbeat, but satisfied he'd done a good day's work. When he finally got to see the newsreels, his downheartedness turned into rage. Not one single piece of film had him in it! Instead, Billie the Bastard was there in every shot and not only that, but the cameras of the day also made his coat look a gleaming white! Then the final blow: "The White Horse Final".
Clive whinnied loudly, realising his one shot had come and gone.

"Bastard"

Days after the final he went for an audition for a Lloyds Bank commercial. As ever, he got down to the last two applicants, but blew it when he failed the Polo-resistance test - the director conducted the sessions with an open pack of Polos on his desk...sadly, Clive had a reallly sweet tooth and just loved fresh, minty breath.
Sadly, his lack of self control, and a large hospital bill from the director, who lost a finger when he tried to wrestle the holey mints from Clive's salivating jaws, meant he was blacklisted in the industry.

Sure, he got occasional offers from 'filmmakers', but these always followed the same seedy path and Clive had his morals.

And so it was he saw out the remainder of the year back in Blackpool, posing for occasional photos in kiss-me-quick hats and giving rides to bored children...but even this was to be short lived...stumbling one day while giving a particularly wriggly child a ride, he snapped his ankle.

I wish I could provide a happy end to this entirely fictional story, but alas, Clive's days had come to an end...a rather sticky one...

FA Cup Final Day - ITV-style (Part 2)

The second and final part of our look at the way ITV's World of Sport created a Cup Final Day experience for all of us watching in on the box.

1976
Duration: 12pm to 5.10pm

Everyone remembers the novelty of seeing the Cup Final teams in their chosen hotels before the big game, and in 1976 World of Sport made it their first port of call on the day. "Up-to-the-minute news on the fitness, mood and morale of the finalists" was what we were promised, but if anything we were probably more fascinated by the sight of both teams sitting around in their smart Admiral sweaters and freshly pressed slacks.

Fred Dinenage punctuated the day's coverage with 'Man In The Crowd' (i.e. interviews with fans and celebrities) while Ed Stewart returned for a third successive year with 'Football Crazy.' On this occasion, he took Martin Buchan and Peter 'Rodreegs' Rodrigues to a local school to meet young fans of Man United and Southampton rather than enlist the help of ne'er-do-wells like Gary Glitter. No bad thing either, if you ask us.

At 1.15pm, it was time for 'Be a Soccer Commentator' - a ten-minute feature where Brian Moore "talks to the winner of a brand new competition designed to find an under-16 year old who will surely never forget his Wembley debut." And you wondered how it all started for Clive Tyldesley...

But that wasn't the only quirky item on the agenda. An hour before kick-off, 'Cup Final Prediction' saw ITV once again aim for notoriety as Georges Bode, "famous Dutch astrologer who predicted the World Cup Finalists and result, and picked today's finalists" attempted to do the same for the 1976 FA Cup Final. Having tried to do the same with the 'ITV Computer' in 1970 and TV Times astrologer Roger Elliot in 1974, it was surely only a matter of time before someone or something got the score right beforehand.

Luckily the Final itself did live up to expectations with Kevin Keegan, Don Revie and Jack Charlton providing Dickie Davies and Brian Moore with all the wit and wisdom they required.

1977
Duration: 12pm to 5.10pm

The preamble to the 1977 FA Cup Final on ITV had a refreshingly cheeky sense of humour about it. Five minutes after World of Sport began, Brian Moore reported from the team hotels with 'On The Ball'. At 1.20pm, it was time for 'On The Coach' - a self-explanatory and by now familiar opportunity to share the journey to Wembley with one of the teams. Then at 1.40 there was 'On The Pitch' - interviews with the players on the hallowed turf. Who says programme planners can't have fun too?

Arguably the strangest feature in the 1977 Cup Final show on ITV was 'Eurovision Penalty Prize Final'. The description, courtesy of the TV Times magazine for that week states: "Jamie Gould from Manchester, representing ITV, challenges four other young European national champions in Rotterdam's giant Feyenoord Stadium for the TV Times trophy." Now a penalty-kick competition in itself is no bad thing, but European penalty champions competing under the Eurovision banner for a trophy sponsored by the TV Times?  The mind truly boggles...

As if that wasn't strange enough, there was also a chance before kick-off for viewers to win a competition by spotting 'Wembley's Wittiest Banners'. Go figure.

1978
Duration: 12pm to 5.10pm

The big build-up to Ipswich v Arsenal began with 'Cup Final On The Ball' in which Brian Moore presented team news from the hotels, plus "the views of two of the country's most famous football fans - Eric Morecambe and Elton John."

After that initial bout of celebrity hero worship, however, World of Sport opted for an altogether pared down approach for the rest of its broadcast. Gone were the eye-catching attempts to innovate, replaced by nothing more than a Golden Goals competition for viewers to enter and a raft of interviews with players on the coach, players arriving at the stadium or players standing on the Wembley pitch.

Kevin Keegan and Jack Charlton provided some punditry, but apart from that, not much to write home about.

1979
Duration: 11.30am to 5.30pm

As if someone had sent a memo to ITV's Head of Sport demanding a greater sense of occasion be created, an extra 50 minutes of broadcast time were spared this year, but it wasn't necessarily used for footballing purposes, so it would seem.

Soon after World of Sport had started, there was a 15-minute segment focusing on the European Women's Gymnastics Championships from Copenhagen. After a half-hour of Ian St.John speaking to some of the players and replaying some of the goals from previous rounds of the FA Cup, it was then time for wrestling in the first of two segments during the programme. Once the football was over and done with, there was also a second round of gymnastics to watch, too.

A by-the-numbers approach was once again used in the pre-match build-up, but a novel idea was applied in the sequence 'Matchwinners of the Seventies' where ITV tracked down all those players that had scored the winning goal in the last nine Cup Finals.

Yet again, the format for Cup Final Day on ITV looked a little tired on paper, even if it looked a little better on the screen. From here on in, though, the 1980's seemed to bring rather less in the way of innovation and freshness, relying ever more on the old ideas that worked best in the past and were easiest to achieve.

Then in 1985, it was announced that World of Sport would no longer appear on our screens after September of that year, and so the 1985 FA Cup Final would be the last to be featured in the Dickie Davies-fronted programme.

By this point, the Wembley Conference Centre bar had become a frequent focus for celebrities enjoying a drink and a chat with Jimmy Tarbuck in the hours leading up to the game, while up in the skies, Anneka Rice was buzzing around in a helicopter (where else) to provide an aerial view of the growing crowds down below.

Saint and Greavsie put in another Cup Final shift as was becoming the norm by then, and with Martin Tyler, Jim Rosenthal and Elton Welsby doing what they do best, this was a competent, cosy and comfortable way to bring World of Sport's biggest show of the year to an end.

The format had been set in stone, the gimmicks had been tried and the standard of broadcasting improved year on year, but the fact remained that the novelty of early starts and quirky features had well worn off by 1985. A new and ever-expanding era of live football on TV was just around the corner, and the FA Cup Final would soon have to compete for the viewers' attention with it all.

As it is, then, we're left with nothing more to do than pause and reflect on an era when the folk of ITV Sport - in front of and behind the cameras - tried their utmost to create a great sense of occasion for all of us watching on the big day. Though some of the ideas failed to hit the spot, there were undoubtedly some successes and in the round it's a combination of the two that will ensure the memory of ITV's Cup Final Day will linger on for many years to come.

Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.14 - FA Cup Special

Not long to go now until FA Cup Final Day, so let's look back to 1978 when two rather fine tracksuit tops graced the biggest game in the English football calendar.

The scene was Wembley, the teams were Ipswich Town and Arsenal. Terry Neill and Bobby Robson emerged from the tunnel into the warm May sunshine and shortly after we got our first sight of the 22 players that would start the 1978 FA Cup Final.

Arsenal were bedecked in red tracksuit tops made by Umbro. Combined with the blue shorts of the away kit they were wearing on the day, the overall effect was a slightly confusing one for supporters and neutrals alike, yet the garment itself was a fine one.

Pat Rice and Frank Stapleton meet
Princess Alexandra

Umbro's familiar diamond logo was stitched in white contained within tramlines along the shoulders and sleeves, running up to the neck where an unavoidable white flappy collar appeared. A white zip divided both halves of the chest and on either side was a large Umbro logo and a depiction of Arsenal's 'cannon' motif which was so big that it could easily have been drawn on a scale of 1:1.

Allan Hunter (Ipswich)

Adidas were the creators of the Ipswich tracksuit top, and they too left no-one in any doubt as to what their corporate logo looked like. The styling was slightly different, however.

On a rich royal blue backdrop, the zip was this time inconspicuous by its similar colouring and a hood was provided instead of a big collar. To complete the look, the famous three stripes of the German sportswear company ran along the sleeves in white while the Ipswich club badge sat proudly on the right breast.

Mick Mills (right) walks the line

The backs of the tops were also different. As anyone that studied at The Football Attic's School of Tracksuit Design will tell you, the mark of a truly great track top can be found in the name of the team or the outfit's manufacturer spelled out in lettering on the back. In this respect, the Suffolk club score full marks for displaying 'Ipswich Town FC' in a perfect arc on theirs.

Rear Gunner: (right) Arsenal's cannon

Arsenal, however, applied a delightfully discrete sense of style by doing away with their club name in favour of a white cannon which looked absolutely spot on. Working on the basis that everyone knew what the badge was (apart from most of the people watching the match live from Australia and New Zealand), it was a very nicely executed piece of knowing understatement.

But on such an auspicious occasion, which one was best - the red of Arsenal or the blue of Ipswich?

On the occasion of the 1978 FA Cup Final, there was only one winner - that of tracksuit design itself.

Check out our other Great Tracksuits of Our Time here

FA Cup Final Programmes (1946-2012)

Continuing FA Cup Final Week here at The Football Attic, we present a video montage showing the front covers of all of the FA Cup Final match-day programmes from 1946 onwards.

Pick your favourites, pick your worst, then tell us what they are - we look forward to hearing from you!

FA Cup Final Day - ITV-style (Part 1)

With just seven days to go until the 2013 FA Cup Final, we begin a week-long series of FA Cup-themed articles here on The Football Attic..

If you heard our recent podcast called 'FA Cup Memories', you'll know that many people (ourselves included) still fondly remember the classic Cup Final Day coverage on TV.

As a child growing up in the UK, one tends to recall ITV and BBC starting their build-up to the big event well before lunchtime. Special features would be shown involving the Cup Final players, celebrities and all manner of novelty fare. This was, after all, the biggest game of the domestic season and the two main UK TV channels did all they could to make sure you tuned in to them for Cup Final Day.

While the BBC's coverage was somewhat earnest and straight-laced, ITV allowed itself to have a bit more fun in its presentation of the big event. To that end, let's remind ourselves of how World of Sport did 'FA Cup Final Day' down the years, starting here with Part 1...

1967

Duration: 12.30pm to 4.55pm

Presented by Eamonn Andrews, Dickie Davies (or Richard Davies as he was still known at the time) was just a roving reporter at Wembley along with Peter Lorenzo (father of Matt, ITV's anchorman during the 1994 World Cup).

The era of bold, eye-catching coverage hadn't yet arrived, so if Davies or Lorenzo had managed to grab a quick chat with a celebrity before kick-off, you'd have counted yourself lucky. This was, to all intents and purposes, a fairly ordinary edition of World of Sport, albeit one presented from Wembley.

Among the non-football items were horse racing from Lingfield, wrestling from the Clifton Hall, Rotherham (featuring Jackie Pallo), and the Australian Pools results.

1969

Duration: 12pm to 5.15pm

Richard Davies was now the main presenter of World of Sport while Brian Moore had taken over commentating duties from Hugh Johns. Jimmy Hill and Barry Davies were on hand to interview ITV's pundits including Danny Blanchflower and Billy Wright, while Jimmy Greaves and Bobby Charlton were brought in as special guests.

One or two special features were now forming part of the Cup Final feast on the commercial channel, one of which was 'Wembley In The Sixties' - a chance to show highlights from great games including the 1966 World Cup Final, the 1968 European Cup Final and the 1969 League Cup Final between Arsenal and Swindon Town. Ten minutes were also spared to look at the Football Writers Dinner at London's Café Royal.

Once again, a few footballing palate cleansers were provided in the form of Whitbread Gold Cup horse racing and professional wrestling.

1970

Duration: 12pm to 5.15pm

Not much change on the previous year. Instead of 'Wembley in the Sixties' we had 'Cup Finals of the Sixties', plus there was the usual recap of all the best goals scored earlier in the competition and interviews with players and pundits.

One big gimmick came to light, however, in the form of the ITV Computer. Fred Dinenage provided an early explanation on how the computer (think tape reels and flashing lights) would, by 2.15pm, be churning out a prediction on the FA Cup Final result. Inevitably the prediction, based on the statistical data fed into it, was wrong, but it did give Jimmy Hill and co. plenty of reasons to discuss its accuracy prior to kick-off.

No horse racing this year, but the wrestling was an 'International Special,' for what it's worth.

1971

Duration: 11.30am to 5.15pm

ITV's earliest start yet as Richard Davies partnered up with Jimmy Hill who refereed a pre-Final debate on the Arsenal v Liverpool match with Malcolm Allison, Pat Crerand and Derek Dougan - the classic ITV Sport panel, for many people.

'Wembley Starspot' was a regular feature throughout the day where Davies interviewed personalities in the 'World of Sport Celebrity Bar.' Around lunchtime was 'Penalty Prize' - a five-minute item where "On The Ball's penalty champion, 15-year-old Ken Henderson from Sunderland" tried to outdo "the panel's penalty king, Bob McNab".

Kids also featured in 'My Dad's At Wembley' where the sons of some of the Arsenal and Liverpool players talked to Brian Moore and Keith Macklin about their fathers and favourite players.

Again, horse racing and wrestling were present in the line-up, along with the cursory five-minute check to see how the Scottish FA Cup Final had gone.

1972
Duration: 11.15am to 5.10pm

Very much 'as you were' in '71 with many of the pundits, presenters and features from the previous year retained, but fortunately we could now call Richard Davies 'Dickie' to cast aside all that unnecessary formality.

Fortunately a couple of new items were brought in to freshen up the schedule. 'Cup Final Comedians' appeared at 1.25pm with 15 minutes of football fun and gags from the likes of Mike Reid, Frank Carson, Bernard Manning and Charlie Williams. With half an hour to go before kick-off, 'The Football Association Pageant' was a 20-minute parade inside Wembley to celebrate the FA's centenary, commentated on by Brian Moore.

'International Athletics' was also added to the non-football content.

1973
Duration: 10.30am to 5.10pm

ITV really pushed the boat out with a super-early start in 1973. Replacing 'The Comedians' this year was a special edition of 'Who Do You Do?' - a popular show featuring impersonators of the day including Eddie Large and Janet Brown. A five-minute segment called 'My Man's At Wembley' also appeared at 1.15pm where the British public got to 'meet' the players' wives.

Another brief change of pace came along in the shape of 'Cup Final Athletics' - "special pre-match invitation races held at Wembley Stadium." Exactly why we're not entirely sure. More interesting, perhaps, was the ITV 'Sky-High' camera providing "a sensational plan-view of the stadium."

1974
Duration: 11am to 5.10pm

Back to an 11 o'clock start this time, shortly after which was 'Football Crazy!'  Here, Ed 'Stewpot' Stewart combined football songs and goal action with children from Liverpool and Newcastle, the 1974 finalists. "Two pop-stars who love their football" were also on hand along with some kids "with well-known sporting dads."

This was the year when 'Camera on the Coach' arrived to give us a unique insight into how 20 angst-ridden men travelled five miles to Wembley in near silence but for the encouraging words of a roving reporter and his microphone. And if the satellite link remained intact for more than five minutes at a time, so much the better, but there was no guarantee of this.

'Talk of the Stars' gave a knowing nod back to the days of the ITV computer by enlisting TV Times astrologer Roger Elliot to predict the outcome of the 1974 FA Cup Final. Five minutes later, 'Footballer's Fancies' invited some of the players to give their tips for the winner of the 2,000 Guineas which was shown immediately afterwards as part of ITV's Cup Final coverage.

A reminder for anyone that might have forgotten: this was 1974 - not 2013.

1975

Duration: 11am to 5.10pm

Quite honestly there wasn't much innovation in ITV's 1975 Cup Final schedule, except for the inclusion of some... how shall we say... 'dubious' personalities?

Aside from the wrestling, the horse racing, the highlights package from previous rounds of the Cup and the Australian Pools results, the only 'highlights' of note were 'Freddie Starr!' at 12pm, 'Freddie Starr Again!' at 1pm and 'Football Crazy' which followed the same format as in 1974 but this time featured various guests including Gary Glitter.

We'll be moving not-so-swiftly onto Part 2 of our ITV Cup Final Day guide very soon, and in it we'll take in juvenile commentators, Dutch astrologers and hopefully no-one questioned as part of Operation Yewtree.