MANCHESTER UNITED 0 CITY 1
League Division 1
7th September 1912
Attendance 40,000
Scorer Wynn
City Goodchild, Henry, Fletcher, Bottomley, Eadie, Hoad, Wynn, Holford, Webb, Jones, Dorsett
United Beale, Linkson, Duckworth, Stacey, Bell, Roberts, Hamill, Meredith, A Turnbull, West, Wall
This was Billy Meredith’s benefit game and although he pocketed over £2,000 from the gate receipts it was City who went away with the points when George Wynn crack home the winning goal just before the break .
taken from FOOTBALL WIZARD THE BILLY MEREDITH STORY By John Harding …On the day itself, there was almost a cup tie atmosphere about the city, with supporters from Wales walking the deserted streets in the early morning. By two o’clock there was an estimated 15,000 waiting outside for the gates to open, while in the Main Stand faces from Meredith’s past were to be seen. There were former City directors John Chapman and Josh Parlby, the men who had brought him from Chirk; ex-Chirk players such as W Owen and Meredith’s brothers Sam and Elias; and, of course, TE Thomas, Meredith’s old schoolmaster. It was more than a benefit match; it was a celebration of one of football’s finest careers. Jimmy Catton was present of course: “There were celebrities in the seats of the mighty and humble folks on the spacious terraces, but they all met to pay their tribute to a man of wonderful skill …in every clime where football is played either as a recreation or as a sport that has to pay it’s way, the name of Meredith is just as much a household name as that of WG Grace’. The club programme more than matched Catton’s purple prose: ‘The pen of the football commentator cannot do justice to thge footballing genius of Meredith. Had he lived in earlier years he would have been the subject of an epic poem and been immortalised with Achilles, Roland and the Knights of the Round Table. This is a more prosaic age and we sit silent and watch with enthusiasm the weaver of football spells, this wizard whose feet and whose heart is as bouyant as in that way in 1894 when he flashed into English football, destined to successfully challenge comparison with the greatest of outside rights that has gone before’. In all 39,911 people paid to watch Meredith’s big game; £1,400 was the record total he was to receive. When he walked onto the pitch there was a terrific roar of cheering and cries of “Good Old Bill” the players heartily joining in the applause. When he went to toss for ends he had another great reception and the Irwell Prize Band played “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”.