1927 FA Cup final

1927 FA Cup final
Event	1926–27 FA Cup
Date	23 April 1927
Venue	Wembley Stadium, London
Referee	William F. Bunnell (Lancashire)
Attendance	91,206
	← 1926 1928 →

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 1–0. Their victory remains the only occasion the trophy, which was previously widely referred to 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 newly-formed British Broadcasting Corporation with commentary by George Allison and Derek "Uncle Mac" McCulloch. Some sources suggest the 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.