Kanu lifts Cup for Portsmouth
published: Sunday | May 18, 2008

Portsmouth's Kanu holds the trophy after beating Cardiff City 1-0 to win the FA Cup final at Wembley yesterday. - AP

WEMBLEY, England (AP):

NWANKWO KANU scored a first-half goal yesterday for Portsmouth to beat Cardiff 1-0 and win the FA Cup final for the first time since 1939.

The Nigerian striker punished a fumble by Cardiff goalkeeper Peter Enckelman in the 37th minute of the 127th FA Cup final to give manager Harry Redknapp his first major trophy in 25 years of coaching.

"Fantastic. For everybody, espe-cially my family," said Redknapp, whose sister-in-law Pat Lampard, mother of Chelsea's Frank Lampard, died of cancer last month. "The fans, the players. It's been a difficult year off the field so this is a dream come true. We're a very close family - it's for all my grandchildren and everybody. The players are all great, I love them all."

Bidding to become the first lower-league team to win the famous trophy since West Ham beat Arsenal in 1980, League Championship club Cardiff threatened occasionally.

But Kanu had one of the worst misses in the world's oldest domestic cup competition when he missed an open net in the 22nd and hit the post instead.

Cardiff's only FA Cup triumph was in 1927 and the Welsh club has not been in the top flight of English soccer since 1962.

Costly mistake

"A slight mistake cost us," Cardiff manager Dave Jones said. "But we have done everyone proud. I hope we've given every club hope that they can achieve what they might have thought was impossible," Jones said. "I'm very proud of my players, my staff, the chairman and especially the fans. I'm sorry we couldn't see it through to the death for them."

Jones' team gave the Premier League's eighth-place finishers an early scare when Paul Parry got past Sol Campbell only for Pompey goalkeeper David James to race off his line and block his shot with his legs.

But Portsmouth should have gone ahead in the 22nd when Kanu finished off a slick move down the left by twisting past Glenn Loovens and Enckelman. The lanky Nigerian was left with an open goal but, from an acute angle, hit the outside of the post.

Kanu, who scored Portsmouth's goal in the semi-final victory over West Bromwich Albion in the same stadium, made up for it 12 minutes later with some major help from Enckelman.