The Cup Final Crowd, 1905

Four years after the hundred-and-ten-thousand of 1901, the Palace crowd had become an institution of its own. This 1905 panorama — Aston Villa against Newcastle United, a hundred and one thousand present — shows the strange geography of the pre-Wembley final: no stands to speak of, just the slopes of a Victorian pleasure garden black with people, the pitch below like a clearing in a forest of hats. The papers printed the crowd as eagerly as the score; the gathering was the story. Within twenty years Wembley would give the final walls. The hillside came first.

Maker

press photograph

Date

1905

Medium of the original

Press photograph

Original held by

Unknown photographer, 1905 · Wikimedia Commons

Credit

Unknown photographer, 1905 · Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-01086