2008 FA Cup Final: Portsmouth 1-0 Cardiff City
The everyfan final

The footage

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2008

The match report

The 127th FA Cup final, played at Wembley on Saturday 17 May 2008, paired Portsmouth of the Premier League with Cardiff City of the Championship. It was only the second final at the rebuilt stadium, and Cardiff's first since they became the only club to take the trophy out of England back in 1927. Portsmouth had waited even longer for a second cup: their first came in 1939, after which they remained holders throughout the war years. Kanu's single goal, eight minutes before half-time, settled it for Harry Redknapp's side.[1][2]

It was a final the era's giants had no part in. For the first time since 1991 none of Manchester United, Arsenal, Liverpool or Chelsea reached the showpiece, and the winners were the first from outside that group since Everton in 1995. Only one top-flight club had even reached the semi-finals, something unseen for a century. Cardiff were attempting to become the first side from outside the top division to lift the cup since West Ham United in 1980, and their route had begun at Chasetown, statistically the lowest-ranked club ever to reach the third round.[9][1]

The underdogs made the running first. Paul Parry twice broke clear in the opening quarter of an hour and twice David James rescued Portsmouth, once with a crucial block after Joe Ledley played the striker through. Portsmouth's reply was a warning: John Utaka squared for Kanu, who took the ball past his man and the goalkeeper only to roll his shot against the outside of an unguarded post.[2][3][5]

The goal came from the same combination and a goalkeeper's error. Utaka whipped a low cross in from the right, Peter Enckelman got a hand to it but could only palm the ball upwards, and Kanu bundled it home from close range. Cardiff nearly answered at once when Parry's cross ran just beyond Kevin McNaughton at the far post, and in stoppage time Glenn Loovens hooked a corner into the net, only for the effort to be ruled out for handball - a decision his own manager later accepted.[2][3][5]

After the interval Portsmouth protected the lead with the discipline that had carried them through the cup. Cardiff sent on Aaron Ramsey, the 17-year-old who would have become the competition's youngest ever winner, and Loovens' diving header from the teenager's corner bounced down and over the bar, but clear chances would not come. In the last minute of added time Enckelman went up for a free-kick, and when Glen Johnson blocked Roger Johnson's effort the final was over.[3][2]

The crowd of 89,874 remains the largest for any football match at the new Wembley. Both sets of supporters had already made their mark before kick-off: the Welsh anthem and God Save the Queen were each booed by the opposing fans, and when Katherine Jenkins' microphone failed halfway through Abide with Me the crowd carried the hymn themselves. Each club had received 25,000 tickets, 8,000 fewer than for their semi-finals, with the FA keeping the rest for its members.[6][7][3][8]

For Redknapp it was a first major trophy in a management career stretching back 25 years, won at the end of what he called a difficult year off the field. Sir Bobby Robson presented the cup to Sol Campbell, whose partnership with Sylvain Distin had been outstanding, and the win carried Portsmouth into the UEFA Cup, the first European campaign in the club's history. An estimated 200,000 people lined the streets for the following day's parade. Within three years the club were in administration, but nobody at Wembley was thinking about that.[2][5][3][1]

Cardiff's consolation was pride and a European near-miss. The FA had confirmed before the final that they would back Cardiff taking England's UEFA Cup place had they won, despite the club playing in the English league while belonging to the Football Association of Wales. Dave Jones said his players had given everything he asked for, Robbie Fowler never made the bench after four months out, and by the autumn Ramsey had been sold to Arsenal and Hasselbaink and Trevor Sinclair had retired. The winners' prize from the FA, as the governing body's own final announcement put it, was 1,000,000 pounds.[3][1][4]

How the match unfolded

1. 2'Sulley Muntari tries a long-range free-kick that Peter Enckelman holds easily. Moments later Paul Parry breaks clear and David James is out quickly to push the ball away from his feet.[3]
2. 12'Joe Ledley plays Parry through and James makes a crucial block. Cardiff have started the brighter side.[2][3]
3. 15'Cardiff go close twice in a minute. James smothers Parry's shot, then Kevin McNaughton's effort takes a heavy deflection and dribbles wide with James wrong-footed.[3]
4. 22'Portsmouth's best chance of the half. John Utaka squares for Kanu, who takes the ball past a defender and Enckelman but rolls his angled shot against the outside of the post. The BBC's written report times this a minute earlier.[3][2]
5. 37'Goal. Utaka whips a low cross in from the right, Enckelman can only palm it upwards and Kanu bundles the loose ball home from close range. Portsmouth lead.[3][2][6]
6. 41'Cardiff almost level immediately. Parry escapes down the left and crosses, but the ball runs just beyond the arriving McNaughton at the far post.[3][2]
7. 46'Deep in first-half stoppage time Hermann Hreidarsson is booked, and from the resulting corner James flaps and Glenn Loovens hooks the ball into the net. It is ruled out for handball by Loovens, a decision Dave Jones later concedes was correct.[3][2][5]
8. 53'Roger Johnson meets Peter Whittingham's free-kick and his deflected header hits the side netting. Some Cardiff fans celebrate before realising.[3][5]
9. 61'Cardiff send on 17-year-old Aaron Ramsey for Whittingham. Had Cardiff won, Ramsey would have become the youngest player ever to win the FA Cup.[3][2]
10. 69'David Nugent replaces Utaka, who had been struggling since hurting himself hurdling a tackle.[3][2]
11. 70'Steven Thompson comes on for Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, who had a desperately disappointing afternoon.[3][2]
12. 79'Loovens meets Ramsey's corner with a diving header that hits the turf and bounces agonisingly over the bar.[3][2]
13. 87'Kanu goes off to a standing ovation, Milan Baros replacing him. Trevor Sinclair has already taken Gavin Rae's place for Cardiff, and Pape Bouba Diop came on for Pedro Mendes earlier in the half.[3][6]
14. 91'Enckelman goes up for a late Cardiff free-kick. The ball reaches Roger Johnson but Glen Johnson blocks his effort, and almost the biggest cheer of the match greets James finally getting his hands on the ball.[3]
15. 95'Full time. Sir Bobby Robson presents the trophy and Sol Campbell lifts it as Portsmouth celebrate their first FA Cup since 1939.[3][2]

Match facts

Date

Saturday 17 May 2008

Venue

Wembley Stadium, London

Attendance

89,874The figure given by ESPN's match record, the standard reference works and Cardiff City's own retrospective. No governing-body document we could reach prints an attendance for this final. Cardiff City's official site notes it remains the largest crowd for any football match at the new Wembley Stadium.[6][1][7]

Referee

Mike Dean (Cheshire FA)[4][2]

Scorers

Nwankwo Kanu 37'[2][6][1]

Half-time

1-0

Competition

2007-08 FA Cup

Where they played

Both sides as they lined up. Choose any player to read what they did in this final.

Select a shirt for that player's note.

Route to the final

Line-ups

Trivia and detail

• Jermain Defoe, signed by Portsmouth in the January window, was cup-tied for the whole run after playing for Tottenham Hotspur in the earlier rounds. Kanu got the lone striker's role ahead of Milan Baros and David Nugent.[5][1]
• Cardiff's players travelled to London by train on the morning of the final and carried their own bags. A club spokesman said the journey took about 90 minutes and the players loved it.[3]
• Cardiff had two records out for the final. James Fox's official club song Bluebirds Flying High reached number 15 in the UK singles chart, while striker Steven Thompson and his teammates recorded their own effort, Do the Ayatollah.[3][1]
• Mike Dean had originally been appointed to referee the 2006 final but was stood down when Liverpool reached it, because he comes from the Wirral. In February 2007 he had sent Harry Redknapp to the stands for foul and abusive language.[3][4]
• Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie won the toss at FA headquarters for colours, so Portsmouth played in their traditional blue and Cardiff wore the black away strip they had also worn in the semi-final.[8]
• Only three English players started the final for Portsmouth: David James, Glen Johnson and Sol Campbell.[1]
• This was the first FA Cup final contested by two English managers since 1991, when Terry Venables' Tottenham beat Brian Clough's Nottingham Forest.[3]
• The jeering of both national anthems before this final led the FA and the Football League to largely drop anthem ceremonies from later finals between English and Welsh clubs.[1]

How well do you know the 2008 final?

Five questions. Every answer is sourced from the material on this page.

1. Who scored the only goal of the 2008 FA Cup final?

   Nwankwo KanuJohn UtakaSulley MuntariDavid Nugent
   Answer

   Nwankwo Kanu. He bundled home from close range after Peter Enckelman could only palm Utaka's low cross upwards, eight minutes before half-time.[2][6]

2. Cardiff had the ball in the net just before half-time, but the 'goal' was ruled out. Why?

   Handball by Glenn LoovensOffside against Paul ParryA foul on David JamesThe ball had gone out of play
   Answer

   Handball by Glenn Loovens. James flapped at the corner and Loovens hooked the ball home, but his first touch had been with an arm. His own manager Dave Jones conceded the decision was correct.[2][5]

3. Who presented the FA Cup to Portsmouth captain Sol Campbell?

   Sir Bobby RobsonPrince WilliamSir Alex FergusonGeoff Hurst
   Answer

   Sir Bobby Robson. Robson, introduced to both teams before kick-off to a huge cheer, handed over the trophy as Campbell turned to the fans and lifted it.[3]

4. What is still true of the 89,874 crowd at this final?

   It remains the largest football crowd at the new WembleyIt was the first 100,000 crowd at the new WembleyIt was the smallest final crowd of the modern eraIt was the last final played in front of standing fans
   Answer

   It remains the largest football crowd at the new Wembley. Cardiff City's own retrospective notes that no football match at the rebuilt stadium has drawn a bigger crowd since.[7][6]

5. Which 17-year-old came off the Cardiff bench and would have become the youngest FA Cup winner in history had his side won?

   Aaron RamseyGareth BaleTheo WalcottJack Wilshere
   Answer

   Aaron Ramsey. Ramsey replaced Peter Whittingham after an hour and nearly created an equaliser, his corner producing Loovens' diving header that bounced over.[3][1]

What is not settled

Honesty matters more than tidiness. These details are contested or unrecorded, and we have not guessed at them:

• The minute of the only goal is 37 in the BBC's report and live text, ESPN, worldfootball.net and pompeyhistory.org, and in Wikipedia's lead and details box - but Wikipedia's own match-summary prose says the 39th minute. We publish 37 and treat the 39 as an internal contradiction in that article, not a credible alternative.
• Cardiff's shape is disputed. The BBC's live text and the Observer's match report describe Paul Parry playing up front alongside Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink, which is the 4-4-2 we draw. Wikipedia's positional chart instead lists Parry at right midfield and Stephen McPhail at left midfield in what amounts to a 4-5-1.
• Kanu's miss against the post is timed at the 21st minute by the BBC's written report and at about the 22nd by the same broadcaster's live text clock.
• Loovens' late header over the bar is given as after 79 minutes by the BBC's report; its live text logs it a minute earlier.
• The referee's county is given as Cheshire FA by the FA's own announcement and as Wirral by the BBC. Both describe Mike Dean's home county football association; we follow the governing body.
• Attendance is the weakest number on the page. No governing-body document we could reach prints one; 89,874 appears in ESPN's match record, the standard references and Cardiff City's own retrospective, which is why it carries three citations rather than an official one.
• No footage has been verified for this final yet, so the television shows no signal rather than an unchecked embed. Two official-channel uploads are proposed and awaiting verification.

How we know

Every claim on this page is tied to a numbered source below. These are the contemporary records behind it, each one fetched and matched word for word before publication rather than taken on trust:

• FA announcement, 7 April 2008: referee appointment, kick-off time and the 1,000,000 pounds winners' prize, preserved by the Internet Archive · The Football Association
• Match report published the morning after the final, 18 May 2008 · The Observer

Where a primary record and a modern account disagree, we show both rather than choosing the tidier number.

Sources

1. 2008 FA Cup final · Wikipedia
2. Portsmouth 1-0 Cardiff · BBC Sport
3. FA Cup final as it happened · BBC Sport
4. Dean gets Final spot · The Football Association
5. Kanu the hit-and-miss man starts the party · The Observer
6. Portsmouth 1-0 Cardiff (17 May, 2008) Final Score · ESPN
7. On this day: 2008 FA Cup Final · Cardiff City FC
8. Bluebirds in black for Wembley final · WalesOnline
9. Devalued and diminished it may be, but the Cup is still a field of dreams · The Guardian

Elsewhere in the encyclopedia

Other finals involving these clubs

• 2010 Portsmouth: Chelsea 1-0 Portsmouth

Other finals at Wembley Stadium

• 2009 Chelsea 2-1 Everton
• 2010 Chelsea 1-0 Portsmouth
• 2011 Manchester City 1-0 Stoke City
• 2012 Chelsea 2-1 Liverpool
• 2013 Wigan Athletic 1-0 Manchester City
• 2014 Arsenal 3-2 Hull City

Elsewhere on WhatChan