Saints were one of the contestants in the first FA Cup Final of the 20th century, sadly it would not be a good day .

As recounted a few days ago back before World War 1 the country was pretty much divided football wise, those in the North played in the Football League and those in the South the Southern League and Saints who had dominated the Southern League were a match for the best in the Football league.

So why didn't the best teams in the South join the Football league, indeed only Woolwich Arsenal south of Birmingham were members and they struggled to compete eventually having to move to North London to seek better support.

In the North the sport was being taken up in droves by the working classes, whilst in the South it was still a Gentleman's game run by Gentlemen although that had changed in the 15 years leading up to the turn of the century.

The Northern clubs got bigger crowds and had bigger grounds, but the real issue that Southern clubs didn't join was twofold, travel and the cost of it in terms of time and money.

Saints had beaten plenty of Football League opposition on their way to the final, Everton, Newcastle & West Brom & then beaten MIllwall in the semi final after a replay to take them to the Crystal Palace ground for the final, again not to be confused with Selhurst Park.

Saints opponents would be Bury a Division One side in the football league, but a firmly mid table one albeit with a reputation for pulling off shock results, but Saints were firm favourites to be the first Southern club since the amateur days of the Old Etonians etc to keep the cup in the South.

But the final for Saints was over almost before it had begun, we lost the toss and kicking into a blazing sun were a goal down after 10 minutes and 3 down after 20, we would eventually lose 4-0

We were never in the game in what was described as a "Weak, Wavering, Pitiable & Lamentable Show" by the press at the time.

The Saints fans in the 68,945 crowd went home wondering just what went wrong, we were one of the best teams in the country and in this cup run had proved we were a match for any Football League team.

It was 12 years before a real explanation of why we had played so badly emerged, apparently there had been some disharmony in the dressing room between the English & Scottish players as to who should play at centre forward and it disturbed the harmony that was so crucial to our success. The poor start had completely demoralised us and despite the efforts we could not get our game going again, something we might have been able to do if we had not conceded so many so early.

But this was not the end of Saints as we know, we continued to be a major team in the Southern League winning the title six times after it's formation in 1894/95 and 1903/04 and we also reached the 1902 cup final as well as this one.

We didn't win it again before WW1 but we were usually there or thereabouts and Portsmouth had only a single title to their name back then, so when they crow about titles and Cup's , we have our fair share of League Titles at a time when the Southern League mattered, sadly for us when North & South clubs effectively merged after the first world war, it was under the Football league banner and not the Southern League, if it had of been they would be very silent these days.

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