A Zeppelin in the crowd – A unique FA Cup final day

By Neil Fredrik Jensen

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The FA Cup final takes place in the most peculiar of circumstances this weekend, the battle for the famous old trophy being played out in an empty stadium.

Although 22 players kicking around in front of a couple of hundred people in the vast bowl of Wembley will provide an unforgettable image, it is unlikely it will rival one of the most iconic photographs ever taken at a cup final – the Graf Zeppelin flying over the packed arena before making a late-afternoon cameo appearance in the sky above Hitchin.

It was on Saturday April 26, 1930 that the LZ127 Graf Zeppelin cruised above Wembley as Arsenal and Huddersfield Town were in action.

The sight of the airship, both beautiful and a little menacing, provided a picture that captured the zeitgeist and portayed the Zeppelin as a sign of German resurgence. Indeed, the Nazi party used the LZ127 as a propaganda tool right up until 1937.

From a football perspective, the meeting of the team of the 1920s, Huddersfield, and the club that would dominate the 1930s, Arsenal, was very much a clash of the titans, both of whom had one thing in common – legendary manager Herbert Chapman, who had left Huddersfield for the Gunners in 1925.

The cup final, which was Arsenal's first, was not the only football match that caught a glimpse of the Zeppelin because in leafy Hertfordshire, a small crowd at an amateur game would also see the long, silver airship.

The LZ127 was on a special flight to Cardington in Bedfordshire, home of the famous R100 and R101, and had made its way across the south of England, reaching Brighton around 1pm.

At Wembley, the captain of the Zeppelin showed great respect to King George by dipping the nose of his vessel as a form of salute. Interestingly, while the crowd was certainly distracted, teams continued playing.

After flying over London, the LZ127 headed north for Bedfordshire. As it did so, the Zeppelin soared above Hitchin just as the local football team was playing Leighton Town.

The crowd at Top Field spotted it and some spectators gasped while others cheered and waved their hats in recognition. It was right at the end of the Canaries' last home game of the 1929-30 season.

At around 4.20pm, the Zeppelin was in the vicinity of Cardington, eventually docking at 5pm. The R100 was standing at its own station, so the airships, both very symbolic in their own way, were almost side-by-side.

The Times reported: "For nearly an hour the two ships were here together and provided a fine opportunity of comparison."

A sizeable crowd had assembled to see the Zeppelin and after luggage was loaded, mail exchanged and passengers allowed on board, it departed at around 6pm from Cardington.

As the airship was about to launch, Dr Hugo Eckener, the head of the Zeppelin company, leaned out of his cabin and called to Major George Herbert Scott, the commander of the R100: "I hope to have the honour of seeing you in Fredrichshafen. You will find the kind of good friends and comrades that I have found here."

The world would soon change and less than six months later, Major Scott was killed in the R101 disaster in Beauvais, France.

His body was never identified, so his remains are buried with other victims of the crash in Cardington's St. Mary the Virgin church. Eckener, who was so full of goodwill for his English counterparts, was a strict anti-

Nazi and was removed from his position at the Zeppelin company.

He survived the second world war and became involved in local politics and journalism.

Zeppelins fell out of fashion after the Hindenberg disaster in 1937, but seven years earlier, they made their mark on football's rich heritage and local history.

Arsenal, by the way, won 2-0 at Wembley while Hitchin were beating Leighton 2-1.

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