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THE HISTORY OF THE FA CUP FINALS, 1872 - 2012

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The Football Association Challenge Cup is 140 years old in 2012, and was played for in 1871-72. But how did this sporting competition, one of the greatest in the world of Football, come into existence?

The game was born on the streets of towns and cities, nurtured in the great Public Schools of Victorian Britain, and eventually organised by the Football Association, which had been formed in 1863 to codify the rules. These had not been uniform in the various parts of the country, and in the various Public Schools, former pupils of which would form their own clubs on leaving school. The origin of the Cup is to be found in the background of the men who formed it. The moving force was Charles Alcock, the Secretary of the Football Association from 1870 to 1895. He had been a member of the Forest Club, which was named after Epping Forest and played near London. It was from this club that the famous Wanderers Football Club evolved, and they would be winners in fi ve of the fi rst seven Cup Finals. Alcock had been educated at Harrow School, which, like all Public Schools then, and now, was divided into boarding-houses, each of which was home to a number of pupils. These houses would compete at Football and Cricket against the other houses in a knock-out competition to see who would become “Cock House.” These types of matches were played in the other leading Public Schools such as Eton, Charterhouse,

Shrewsbury, Rugby, Clifton, Winchester etc. Alcock’s fellow-members of the Football Association had also been at these type of schools, and understood the tradition surrounding these House competitions. So the F.A. Cup competition was, in effect, an adaptation on a national scale of what Alcock and his friends had known as schoolboys. It was therefore no surprise that Alcock found immediate support for his original proposal … “that it is desirable that a Challenge Cup competition should be established.” So it was that on July 20, 1871, in a small oak-panelled room at the London offi ces of The Sportsman newspaper that a seven-man committee of the Football Association agreed to establish a Challenge Cup competition. It was essentially meant to be a “Challenge,” the idea being that the winners would be exempted the following season from all the earlier rounds, would then play in the Final and would be challenged by the other fi nalist. It was a principle that was, however, soon swept aside – but the competition is still offi cially known as the “Football Association Challenge Cup”. In that opening 1871-72 season, sixteen years before the formation of the Football League, fi xture cards for the season had already been completed, with clubs playing friendly matches against each other. Because of the scheduled friendly fi xtures and the travelling involved, Northern members of the nine year-old FA were absent from that fi rst competition. But fi fteen teams did enter, though only two – Queen’s Park of Glasgow and Donington Grammar School – came from North of Hertfordshire. Five clubs were from

THE FOOTBALL ASSOCIATION CHALLENGE CUP:

THE EARLY YEARS

By Richard Shepherd

??? ■ ABOVE: Lord Arthur Kinnaird

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??? ■ ABOVE: Lord Arthur Kinnaird

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outside the London Metropolitan area – Hitchin, Royal Engineers, Reigate Priory, Maidenhead and Great Marlow. The other eight were all within easy reach of the centre of London – Wanderers, Harrow Chequers, Barnes, Civil Service, Crystal Palace (not the current Football League Club), Upton Park, Clapham Rovers, Hampstead Heathens. These were the fi fteen entrants for the competition that was won in its fi rst year by Wanderers, who defeated Royal Engineers, 1-0, at The Oval, home of Surry County Cricket Club, in front of just under 2,000 spectators. Scottish Club Queen’s Park were one of the original entries, Charles Alcock and his F.A. colleagues intending that their new competition would be open to clubs from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. In fact, Queen’s Park reached the Final in 1884 and 1885, losing on each occasion to Blackburn Rovers. But the later formation of the Scottish and Irish Football Associations meant that they would start their own Cup competitions. So Scottish and Irish clubs gradually withdrew from the FA Cup, but not the Welsh clubs. Despite the 1876 formation of the FA of Wales, who began their own Welsh Cup competition the following year, their leading clubs continued in the FA Cup as is the case today – in fact, Cardiff City won the FA Cup in 1927, the only time that a non-English club has won it, and Cardiff reached the Final on two other occasions. In the early years of the FA Cup, there was no professionalism in the game (at least not offi cially). Several clubs were though, paying players on the side, and when the FA discovered it these clubs were expelled from the competition. But the tide of professionalism could not be turned back, and the FA legalised it in 1885. Up to then, it was the leading amateur clubs consisting of ex-University students and well-to-do players who were the main participants. But with the growth of the Northern and Midland clubs that consisted of working men, it was Blackburn Olympic, a side of cotton-weavers, plumbers, dentists assistant, ironworkers, picture framers and

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spinners, who in 1883 beat Old Etonians in the Final. When Warburton, the Olympic captain, was presented with the Cup, there were remarkable scenes of enthusiasm in front of the Oval pavilion. The Blackburn supporters went mad with excitement. Until that moment the Cup for them had existed more in dreams than reality, but here at last it was about to travel North. What a homecoming the Olympic were given. Cheering, waving crowds, and brass band marked the triumphal route as the team, with Warburton holding the Cup aloft were driven through the streets of Blackburn in a wagonette drawn by six horses. It was the start of a homecoming tradition for the Cup winners that continues to this day. From then on, it would be “working class” clubs who would dominate the competition and Blackburn Rovers

won it in three consecutive years (1884, 1885 and1886). The days of the Hon. Arthur Kinnaird, later Baron Kinnaird and President of the FA, who had played for Wanderers and old Etonians were over. He would take the fi eld ready for battle – for a battle it was in those days with shoulder-charging and hacking in spite of the rules – wearing long white fl annel trousers, his club jersey and a blue and white quartered cricket cap rounded off by his splendid red beard. With professionalism now a major force in the game, and the FA Cup now its leading competition, clubs now needed some kind of organised competition to attract spectators apart from the Cup. So it was that the Football League came into existence in 1887-88. But while that developed into a regular weekly competition, it was the FA Cup that remained the “glamour” competition, which

would eventually be played at Wembley Stadium in front of 100,000-plus spectators. The original F.A. Cup trophy existed until 1895. But less than fi ve months after Aston Villa had won it that year, they put it on display in the shop window of William Shillcock, a football and boot manufacturer of Newton Row, Birmingham. But on the night of September 11, 1895, it was stolen from the premises and never recovered. The second trophy, an exact copy of the original, was in use until 1910. But because its design was pirated, it was withdrawn from service and presented to Baron Kinnaird. The third trophy was in use from 1911 to 1992, when it had to be withdrawn from service because it was incapable of having further repairs due to celebratory handling over the years. The FA ordered an exact copy of the third trophy and is the one that is in use today.

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