July 20 - The FA Cup is born

The year is 1871. It is the year that Queen Victoria officially opened the Royal Albert Hall, and the year that journalist Sir Henry Morton Stanley uttered the words: “Dr Livingstone, I presume?” having tracked down the explorer in deepest Africa.

It is also the year that a young man by the name of Charles William Alcock invented what would become the most famous football competition in the world: the FA Cup.

It was on this day, in the offices of The Sportsman newspaper, that in his capacity of FA secretary, Alcock said: “It is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association, for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete.” The FA Cup, the world’s first national knock-out tournament was born.

Alcock was an instrumental figure in shaping the game as we know it today. Born in Sunderland, he was educated at Harrow School, where he played football regularly, as a hard working forward. As a journalist he published the first ever Football Annual in 1868.

He was also a key figure in establishing the Wanderers team, which was made up predominantly of Old Harrovians, and he even captained the side as they won the first FA Cup in 1872, beating the Royal Engineers, at the Kennington Oval.

Alcock went on to captain England in a 2-2 draw with Scotland in 1875, which was his only international match. He served as FA secretary until 1895, and refereed the FA Cup finals of 1875 and 1879.

In its first year, a mere 15 teams entered the competition, compared with more than 600 that took part last season.

2000 people attended the first final with tickets sold for one shilling, while nearly 90,000 fans watched the bore-fest that was last season’s final between Manchester United and Chelsea, with millions more watching on television around the world. Obviously there was no TV coverage of the first final, but on the plus side it meant no one had to put up with John Motson banging on about “the magic of the cup” in every second sentence of his commentary.

Some things never change though: both the first and the most recent finals were settled by a single goal. For Drogba in 2007, read Morton Betts (playing under the assumed name A.H. Chequer after his old team Harrow Chequer) in 1872 as the only scorer.

This is the Royal Engineers team that lost to Wanderers in the first final of 1872. Click the picture to see the full size image.

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