Match Summary

England Team

Wales Team

England beat Wales at Portsmouth, yesterday, by two goals to one, but the victory was due rather to the turn of the luck than to any superiority of the Englishmen. As a combined team the Welshmen were undoubtedly better than their opponents. Although having to act chiefly on the defensive during the first half, England scored the only goal. Good play by Davis led up to the point, but had not Blew just touched the ball, Bache, whose shot beat Evans, would have been off-side. The winning point had not quite the same element of chance about it, but the ball was only rushed through from a scrimmage. Davis, after having a shot fisted out, centred nicely, and Corbett headed in, while from the ensuing scramble Woodward scored. The Welshmen's goal was the result of very different play. Davies, the left half-back, passed up the field to Atherton, who made an opening for A. G. Morris, and the outside man, outpacing Crompton, centred beautifully across the goal ; Watkins rushed up and sent in a hard low shot, which Sutcliffe had no chance of stopping...

Heavy rain had left the Fratton Park ground very soft, and it was a matter for regret that such a keen, hard game could not have been fought out under more favourable conditions. No rain fell during the afternoon, but the bad weather had already done much to spoil the football by making the ground so treacherous. - The Times - Tuesday 3rd March, 1903

IN OTHER NEWS...

It was on 2 March 1903 that an extraordinary case of sheep worrying was reported from Banbury in Oxfordshire. Two dogs caused a flock of 200 sheep to take refuge in a stream huddled together, but this disrupted the water flow and caused 55 of them to die from either drowning, or suffocation from the wet fleeces of other sheep.

Source Notes

Bobby Atherton, the Welsh inside-left, later went on to captain Middlesbrough FC. He was lost at sea on 19 October 1917.  But there seems to be no trace of him after leaving Chelsea FC in 1906.  The 1911 Census Return states that the Bethesda-born player was in fact the Hotel Manager of the Market Hotel in Hartlepool (left).  The same place that English outside-left Alf Priest would also manage and later die in.

 

 
Welsh Football Data Archive
Original newspaper reports 
Rothmans Yearbooks
FA Yearbooks 1950-60
Ancestry.com
____________________

CG