On the 23rd of April 1927, Fred Keenor climbed the famous Wembley steps to receive the FA Cup from the King. His team, Cardiff City, had become the first, and as yet the only, Welsh team to win the coveted trophy.

The victory was a momentous and much celebrated occasion in the history of Wales. That morning a Welsh newspaper had printed a picture of the Cardiff City captain knocking Lloyd George off a pedestal labelled `the most important man in Wales'. The game made Keenor a Welsh national hero in a way that the rugby stars that preceded him had not been. South and north celebrated Cardiff City's achievement and Fred Keenor was at the centre of that triumph.

During the inter-war years, Keenor's name was synonymous with Cardiff City. His playing career with the club spanned almost two decades, from his signing as a seventeen-year-old amateur in 1912, until his release in 1931. In those years, he made 504 appearances for the club, many as captain, who also won thirty-one caps for Wales. So often the linchpin and inspiration of both club and country, he played for Cardiff City through its rise from the Southern League to FA Cup winners, as well as leading Wales to the home championship. By the time he retired from playing, he had become something of a legend in Welsh soccer., Keenor's career sheds further light on the nature of inter-war soccer stars. By looking at what made Keenor popular and then what he came to symbolise, a different kind of footballing hero is uncovered.

Frederick Charles Keenor, the son of a bricklayer and mason, was born in Cardiff in July 1894. His rise to the status of professional footballer followed the conventional path of so many of his contemporaries. His first taste of organised soccer was at schoolboy level where he won a variety of honours. He captained his Elementary School team to a local league championship and played in both his city's and country's representative schoolboy sides. Upon leaving education he found work but continued playing in the Cardiff and District League. His improving ability eventually came to the attention of the young Cardiff City club. In 1912, aged seventeen, Keenor was `pounced upon' after a game in a local park by one of his former schoolmasters who was now a Cardiff City director. He was pressured into signing amateur terms for the club and, by the end of the year, had turned professional for a weekly wage of ten shillings. Like so many Edwardian footballers, he continued to work outside the game as well as playing. With his two wages he said that he felt like a millionaire. His professional career developed slowly with only limited opportunities in the senior side but then, just as he was beginning to establish himself in the first-team, war was declared. By 1915, more because of falling attendances and practical difficulties than moral pressure, soccer relented to the conditions of wartime and suspended competitive fixtures. The situation left Keenor and other players out of work. With little alternative, he followed the call-to-arms and enlisted.

Like so many of his generation the Great War scarred Keenor, both physically and mentally, for the rest of his life. He served in the 17th Middlesex Battalion (the Footballers' Battalion) and was injured at the Somme in 1916. A sergeant-major told Keenor that he was the worst rifle marksman that he had ever met. His rifle skills apparently reflected his shooting with the ball since he was later told that he was just about the worst shot in the Football League. A leg wound he received later in the war threatened to end his footballing career before it had really started but it healed and Keenor survived the conflict. After being demobbed, he found work in a gasworks and on a milk round, but unlike many of his contemporaries, this insecure situation was to be only temporary and Keenor rejoined Cardiff City when professional soccer recommenced in 1919.

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