The 1953 FA Cup Final: Modernity and Tradition in British Culture

Abstract

The 1953 FA Cup final was more than just a memorable game of football. It was the first cup final to reach a mass television audience. It was a match where a national hero, Stanley Matthews, finally won a winner's medal for a competition that itself was a national institution. It was also a match that was intertwined with the ideas of modernity and tradition that ran through British culture in the early 1950s. The new Queen, present at the game, represented optimism in the future, an optimism closely linked with a technological progress that was epitomised by television. The celebrations of both the cup final and the coronation fed a sense of consensus and unity in the nation. Yet, as the loyalty towards the monarchy and the celebration of a respectable working-class hero like Matthews showed, British culture also remained profoundly attached to older traditions. Such discourses were mediated and actively promoted, although in varying fashions, by the local and national press. The game is thus a guide to the importance of historians understanding the press, not just as a repository of the past but also as an agent that helped to shape that past.