Cardiff City defeat Arsenal in the FA Cup Final, the only time it has been won by a team not based in England.
The 1927 FA Cup Final was an association football match between Cardiff City and Arsenal on 23 April 1927 at the Empire Stadium (the original Wembley Stadium). The final was the showpiece match of English football's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup), organised by the Football Association. Cardiff, one of the few Welsh teams taking part, won the match 10. Their victory remains the only occasion the trophy, which was previously known as the "English Cup", has been won by a team based outside England.
The teams entered the competition in the third round as members of the Football League First Division and progressed through five rounds to reach the final. In the fifth round, Cardiff knocked out the reigning champions, Bolton Wanderers. By the quarter-final stage, Arsenal and Cardiff were the only teams from the First Division remaining.
On the day of the final, additional trains were provided to transport Cardiff's fans to Wembley, and police reinforcements were deployed to keep at bay fans who had been sold fake tickets. A concert held before the game included a rendition of "Abide with Me"; singing this song before the match has since become a cup final tradition. For the first time, the final was broadcast on the radio by the BBC; some sources suggest this broadcast was the origin of the phrase "back to square one", although the expression predates the match. There were more than 300,000 applications for tickets, and 91,206 were in attendance. A further 15,000 fans listened in Cardiff's Cathays Park to the radio broadcast.
The only goal of the game was credited to Cardiff's Hughie Ferguson after his shot slipped out of the hands of Arsenal goalkeeper Dan Lewis, who knocked the ball into the net with his elbow. Lewis later blamed his new woollen jersey, saying that it was greasy. This inspired the Arsenal tradition of washing goalkeeper jerseys before every match. The press called the game the "Singing Final" and highlighted that the FA Cup had gone to Wales for the first time. In the ensuing years, Cardiff suffered a decline in their fortunes and did not reach the FA Cup final again until 2008.
Cardiff City Football Club (Welsh: Clwb Pêl-droed Dinas Caerdydd) is a professional association football club based in Cardiff, Wales. It competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1899 as Riverside A.F.C., the club changed its name to Cardiff City in 1908 and entered the Southern Football League in 1910 before joining the English Football League in 1920. The team have spent 17 seasons in the top tier of English football, the longest period being between 1921 and 1929. Their most recent season in the top flight was the 2018–19 Premier League season.
Cardiff is the only team from outside England to have won the FA Cup, doing so in 1927. They have also reached three other cup finals in English competitions, the 1925 FA Cup Final against Sheffield United, the 2008 FA Cup Final against Portsmouth and the 2012 Football League Cup Final against Liverpool, suffering defeat on each occasion. They have won the Welsh Cup on 22 occasions, making them the second-most successful team in the competition's history behind Wrexham.
With the exception of a short period this century, the team have played in home colours of blue and white since 1908, from which their nickname "The Bluebirds" derives. Cardiff's first permanent ground was Ninian Park, opened in 1910; it remained in use for 99 years until the club moved into the Cardiff City Stadium in 2009. Cardiff have long-standing rivalries with nearby clubs Swansea City, with whom they contest the South Wales derby, and Bristol City, with whom they contest the Severnside derby. The club's record appearance holder is Billy Hardy, who made 590 appearances in a 20-year playing spell with Cardiff, and their record goalscorer is Len Davies with 179 goals.