International Football History and Statistics

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On this day in football history

1907 According to the reports of the day, Billy Meredith, famous Welsh outside right from 1894 to 1924, scored his 200th League goal, playing for Manchester United against Newcastle United at St. James's Park. He had scored his first League goal on the ground 13 years earlier. At the start of his career he was a prolific scorer but later he only used to notch 2 or 3 in a season. There is now a controversy as to how many League goals he did score. The Manchester City Handbook of 1930 puts the figure at 236 but a recent authority claims only 184.

1927 For the annual contest for the FA Charity Shield, the Association matched Cardiff City, the previous season's Cup winners with the Corinthians. This was the only occasion a Welsh side played for the trophy and they won 2-1. Cardiff City: Farquharson; Nelson, Hardy; Irving, Keenor, Blackburn; Thirlaway, Len Davies, Ferguson, Curtis, McLachlan. Corinthians: A.M. Russell; A.G. Bower, A.E. Knight; W.T. Whewell, A.R. Chadder, F.W. Ewer; R.G. Jenkins, C.T. Ashton, G. Ashton, F. Hartley, K.E. Hegan. The goal scorers were Ferguson and Davies for Cardiff and G. Ashton for the amateurs.

1929 Bill Hartill, Wolverhampton Wanderers' centre forward, scored all 5 goals in a Second Division match against Notts County. It was his first full season with the club and he ended with 34 goals, a record for Wolves until 1947 when Denis Westcott hit 37. He played a few games during 1928-29 and remained with the club until the summer of 1935 when he moved to Everton. In all he scored 164 goals in 221 League games for the Midland club. During 1935-36 he appeared for three clubs, Everton, Liverpool and Bristol Rovers but did nothing of note and although he remained at Eastville until the end of season 1937-38 he had only 43 matches and 21 goals in three seasons to add to his Molineux figures.

1935 A crowd of 82,905, the largest attendance for a League game in London, saw Chelsea draw 1-1 with Arsenal at Stamford Bridge. This is not the ground record as 92,000 are known to have paid to see Chelsea play Moscow Dynamo in November 1945 and it is estimated anything up to 100,000 broke in and saw the game free.

1935 Gilbert Alsop, Walsall's fine goalscorer of the 1930s moved to West Bromwich Albion. He played in only one game at the Hawthorns in two years and then had a short spell with Ipswich Town before returning to Walsall. Coventry City had been his first club where he spent two years before joining the Saddlers for the first time in 1930. In both 1934 and 1935 he scored 40 goals, still the club record and when he retired in 1947 he had scored 152 League goals in 194 matches for them. With his other clubs he only added 6 goals in 26 matches.