CITY 0 CARDIFF CITY 0
FA Cup 4th Round
8th March 1924
Attendance 76,166
City Mitchell, Cookson, Fletcher, Hamill, Wilson, Pringle, Meredith, Roberts, Johnson, Barnes, Browell
Cardiff Farquharson, Nelson, Blair, H Evans, Keenor, Hardy, Lawson, Gill, Davies, Clennell, J Evans
Taken from FOOTBALL WIZARD THE BILLY MEREDITH STORY By John Harding
“In the quarter finals City were to meet Cardiff! then approaching the peak of their First Division days. 76,000 spectators crammed into Maine Road that day to watch a 0-0 draw, and The Manchester Guardian tried to be objective about Meredith: ‘there was great interest in Meredith’s play. he is one of the Trojans, but also one of the veterans. he was as useful as any of the Manchester forwards but it is! all the same! a confession of weakness to play him? he performs as artistically as ever that strange feat of magnetising the ball round his toes in a half circle and then running down the field to the goal-line with a ferocious half back somehow kept always on the off side of him. He was only beaten once or twice all Saturday afternoon. The trouble is not that he cannot go for and fight for the ball as he did 20 years ago, but that, small blame to him, he just lacks that fragment of speed and strength that makes all the difference on one occasion on Saturday between an excellent shot and a decisive goal. But Cardiff will not see on Wednesday any finer master of tactics or controller of the ball.
“In the quarter finals City were to meet Cardiff! then approaching the peak of their First Division days. 76,000 spectators crammed into Maine Road that day to watch a 0-0 draw, and The Manchester Guardian tried to be objective about Meredith: ‘there was great interest in Meredith’s play. he is one of the Trojans, but also one of the veterans. he was as useful as any of the Manchester forwards but it is! all the same! a confession of weakness to play him? he performs as artistically as ever that strange feat of magnetising the ball round his toes in a half circle and then running down the field to the goal-line with a ferocious half back somehow kept always on the off side of him. He was only beaten once or twice all Saturday afternoon. The trouble is not that he cannot go for and fight for the ball as he did 20 years ago, but that, small blame to him, he just lacks that fragment of speed and strength that makes all the difference on one occasion on Saturday between an excellent shot and a decisive goal. But Cardiff will not see on Wednesday any finer master of tactics or controller of the ball.
