Cardiff City had joined the Football League in 1920, entering the Second Division and winning promotion to the First Division in their first season. The club had come close to becoming the first team from outside England to win the First Division in 1923–24, losing the title on the final day of the season to Huddersfield Town on goal average. Two years later, Cardiff became the first Welsh side to reach an FA Cup final, playing in the 1925 final in which they lost 1–0 to Sheffield United. Such was the competitiveness of the side at the time that "The Times" labelled the team as "perhaps the best team in the country". These near misses with competition victories had raised hopes of a first trophy success in English football for the 1925–26 campaign. However, the team struggled to adapt to a new change in the offside law that had reduced the number of defenders between an attacking player and the goal from three to two. The change was an attempt to increase the number of goals being scored and, although the new rule had the desired effect (the goals per game average jumped by over 1, from 2.58 to 3.69), Cardiff struggled under the new format.