Event | 1877–78 FA Cup | ||||||
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Date | 23 March 1878 | ||||||
Venue | Kennington Oval, London | ||||||
Referee | Segar Bastard | ||||||
Attendance | 4,500 | ||||||
The 1878 FA Cup final was an association football match between Wanderers F.C. and Royal Engineers A.F.C. on 23 March 1878 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the seventh final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (commonly known in the modern era as the FA Cup). Wanderers had won the Cup in the previous two seasons and on four previous occasions in total, including the first FA Cup final in 1872, in which they defeated the Engineers. The Engineers had also won the Cup, having defeated Old Etonians in the 1875 final.
The Wanderers, who were considered firm favourites to win the Cup for the third consecutive season, took the lead after only five minutes through Jarvis Kenrick, but the Engineers quickly equalised. The Cup-holders regained their lead before half-time and added a third goal after the half-time interval to secure a 3–1 victory. Under the original rules of the competition, the Cup was retired and presented to the club on a permanent basis to mark their third consecutive win, but the Wanderers returned it to the Football Association on the condition that it never again be won outright by any club.
The Football Association Challenge Cup (commonly known in the modern era as the FA Cup) was the first formal competition created for the sport of association football, which had first been codified in 1863. [1] [2] The creation of the tournament had been proposed in 1871 by Charles W. Alcock, the secretary of the Football Association (the FA), who wrote that "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". [3] His inspiration had been a similar competition between houses during his time as a pupil at Harrow School. [3] [4] The first FA Cup competition took place during the 1871–72 season and 15 clubs entered. [4] Wanderers won the final, defeating Royal Engineers, [5] and Alcock himself was the winning captain. [6]
In the 1877–78 season, the Wanderers were the reigning Cup-holders, having defeated Oxford University in the 1877 final. [7] [8] In addition to their victory in 1872, the team had also won the Cup in 1873 and 1876. [9] [10] No other club had yet won the competition more than once. [11] The Engineers had won the Cup in 1875. [7] The members of the Wanderers club were wealthy gentlemen who had attended some of the leading English public schools, including Harrow and Eton College; the Engineers team consisted of officers from the Corps of Royal Engineers, a division of the British Army. [12] At the time, the sport was strictly amateur and was dominated by teams from the upper classes. It was not until 1882 that a working-class team reached the FA Cup final. [3]
The 1877–78 FA Cup was contested by 43 clubs, all of which entered the competition at the first round stage. [13] The Wanderers were allocated a home match against Panthers in the first round and easily defeated their opponents 9–1, with Hubert Heron scoring four goals. [14] [15] In the second round they were paired with High Wycombe and again recorded a high-scoring victory, winning 9–0. [13] [14] The Wanderers were considered strong favourites to secure another victory when they faced Barnes in the third round, [16] but the match ended in a 1–1 draw, necessitating a replay. [13] [17] [18] Two weeks later, the Wanderers won the second match 4–1. [14] [19] In the quarter-finals the Wanderers defeated Sheffield 3–0 and then, with an uneven number of teams remaining in the competition, they received a bye into the final. [13] [20]
The Engineers' scheduled first round opponents were Union, but they withdrew from the competition, giving the Engineers a walkover victory. [13] [21] The "Sappers", as the Corps of Royal Engineers is traditionally nicknamed, went on to defeat Pilgrims 6–0 and Druids 8–0 in the second and third rounds respectively, [13] with a hat-trick in both matches from Lieut. Robert Hedley. [22] [23] In the quarter-finals their opponents were the previous season's defeated finalists and the 1874 Cup-winners, Oxford University. [23] The initial match finished in a 3–3 draw, and the replay also finished without a victor, ending 2–2. Finally, the Engineers emerged victorious in a second replay, winning 4–2. [13] This set up a semi-final match against Old Harrovians, the team for former pupils of Harrow School. [24] The match was played at Kennington Oval in south London and the Engineers reached the final by defeating the Harrovians 2–1. [25] [26]
Like the semi-final, the final was played at Kennington Oval. The match drew a crowd estimated at 4,500 spectators, the highest yet recorded for an FA Cup final. [27] The referee was Segar Bastard of the Upton Park club. The umpires were C. Warner of Upton Park and B. Jarrett of Old Harrovians. [28] Hedley was the team captain for the Engineers and Hon. Arthur Kinnaird for the Wanderers. [8] Both teams played with two full-backs, two half-backs and six forwards. [28] In the previous year's final, Kinnaird had been the Wanderers' goalkeeper, but on this occasion he played as a half-back; at the time the position of goalkeeper was not regarded as a specialised one and players often alternated between goalkeeping and playing in an outfield position. [29] James Kirkpatrick played in goal for the Wanderers; having turned 37 the previous day he was the oldest player to appear in a Cup final to date. [27] The only other change in the team's line-up from the previous year's final saw John Wylie replace Francis Birley. [8] The Engineers' team did not include any players from their Cup-winning team of four years earlier, [30] but did include Lieut. Oliver Ruck, whose brother Richard had played in that victory. [10] [31] The Wanderers, who were considered the firm favourites by the book-makers, [32] won the pre-match coin toss and chose to defend the Harleyford Road end of the ground in the first half. [28]
The Cup-holders immediately dominated the game and Kinnaird quickly had a shot on goal which was kept out by Lieut. William Morris with his head. [33] [34] After only five minutes Henry Wace crossed the ball from a wide position and Jarvis Kenrick kicked the ball past the Engineers' goalkeeper Lieut. Lovick Friend to give the Wanderers the lead. [32] [33] Immediately after falling behind, according to a report published in the Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, the Engineers "charged desperately on the opening goal" and their opponents "had rather a rough time of it". [32] Approximately ten minutes after the opening goal, Kirkpatrick suffered a broken arm during a tussle on the goal-line, but he managed to keep the ball out of the goal and went on to play the remainder of the match despite his injury. [28] Had he left the game, his team would not have been able to replace him as the concept of substitutes did not yet exist. [35] In the 20th minute of the game, the Engineers' pressure paid off as they scored an equalising goal. [32] Some modern sources state that Morris scored the goal, [7] [36] but contemporary newspaper reports state that Morris took a throw-in which led to a "scrimmage" (a contemporary term for a group of players all struggling to gain possession of the ball, now usually referred to as a "goalmouth scramble") in front of the Wanderers' goal, out of which the ball was forced over the goal-line, making the actual scorer of the goal unclear. [37] [38]
Towards the end of the first half, the Wanderers were awarded a free kick after a handball offence by the Engineers. Kinnaird took the kick, which led to a second goal for the Cup-holders. Modern sources list Kinnaird as the goalscorer, [7] but some contemporary reports suggest that, following his free kick, another goalmouth scramble ensued in front of the Engineers' goal before the ball was forced over the line, again making the actual scorer unclear. [34] [39] Shortly before half-time, Charles Wollaston took a shot for the Wanderers but it went wide of the goal; at the break his team held a 2–1 lead. [34] [40] Shortly after the half-time interval, Hedley appeared to have brought the scores level once again, but the goal was disallowed due to an infringement of the offside rule. [40] After around twenty minutes of the second period, Heron of Wanderers made a run down the left side of the pitch and crossed the ball into the centre; Morris missed the ball and Heron regained control of it and passed it to Kenrick, who scored his second goal of the game, giving the Wanderers a 3–1 lead. [34] [32] The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent report praised Heron for his performance in the second half, stating that his dribbling was "excellent". During the remainder of the game, the Engineers again made a number of attacks on the Wanderers' goal but their opponents were able to deal with them. The Sheffield and Rotherham Independent report stated that during the latter stages of the game "the only chance seemed to be of the Wanderers increasing their lead". [32] Despite this, no further goals were scored and the final result was a 3–1 victory for Wanderers. [34]
Wanderers | 3–1 | Royal Engineers |
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Kenrick 5', 65' Kinnaird (unconfirmed)35' | Morris (unconfirmed)20' |
Wanderers [12] | Royal Engineers [12] |
|
|
As was the norm until 1882, the winning team were not presented with the trophy at the stadium on the day of the match, but later in the year at their annual club dinner. [41] Under the original rules of the competition, if a team won the Cup three times in succession, it would be retired and become their "absolute property". The Wanderers' committee, however, returned the Cup to the FA on the condition that the rule be removed and no other team permitted to win the Cup outright. [42] As of 2024 [update] , the only other team to win the Cup in three successive seasons is Blackburn Rovers, who won it in 1884, 1885, and 1886. [43] [44] On that occasion the club was presented with a commemorative shield. [45] The trophy which the Wanderers won in 1878 continued to be used until 1895, when it was stolen and never recovered; a new trophy of identical design was made to replace it. [42]
Three weeks after the Cup final, the Wanderers played the winners of the 1877–78 Scottish Cup, Vale of Leven, at Kennington Oval. The match between the winners of England and Scotland's national football competitions generated significant interest, but the size of the crowd was impacted by very bad weather. In a game played in very poor conditions, the Wanderers were defeated 3–1. [46] Neither the Wanderers or the Royal Engineers would appear in the final of the FA Cup again after 1878. [11] Wanderers' fortunes declined rapidly, partly because many of the team's leading players opted to play instead for the clubs set up specifically for the former pupils of individual schools. The team last took part in the FA Cup in the 1879–80 season, [47] and by the mid-1880s the Wanderers club had ceased to play matches altogether. [12] [48] The officers of the Royal Engineers continued to enter the FA Cup until 1883, after which the focus was instead placed on teams open to all ranks representing individual battalions within the corps; these teams took part in the FA Amateur Cup and army-specific competitions. [12] [23]
Wanderers Football Club was an English association football club. It was founded as "Forest Football Club" in 1859 in Leytonstone. In 1864, it changed its name to "Wanderers", a reference to it never having a home stadium, instead playing at various locations in London and the surrounding area. Comprising mainly former pupils of the leading English public schools, Wanderers was one of the dominant teams in the early years of organised football and won the inaugural Football Association Challenge Cup in 1872. The club won the competition five times in total, including three in succession from 1876 to 1878, a feat which has been repeated only once.
Arthur Fitzgerald Kinnaird, 11th Lord Kinnaird, was a British principal of The Football Association and a leading footballer, considered by some journalists as the first football star. He played in nine FA Cup Finals, a record that stands to this day. His record of five wins in the competition stood until 2010, when it was broken by Ashley Cole.
Blackburn Olympic Football Club was an English football club based in Blackburn, Lancashire in the late 19th century. Although the club was only in existence for just over a decade, it is significant in the history of football in England as the first club from the north of the country and the first from a working-class background to win the country's leading competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. The cup had previously been won only by teams of wealthy amateurs from the Home counties, and Olympic's victory marked a turning point in the sport's transition from a pastime for upper-class gentlemen to a professional sport.
The 1871–72 Football Association Challenge Cup was the first staging of the Football Association Challenge Cup, usually known in the modern era as the FA Cup, the oldest association football competition in the world. Fifteen of the association's fifty member clubs entered the first competition, although three withdrew without playing a game. In the final, held at Kennington Oval in London on 16 March 1872, Wanderers beat the Royal Engineers by a single goal, scored by Morton Betts, who was playing under the pseudonym A. H. Chequer.
The 1872 FA Cup final was a football match between Wanderers and Royal Engineers on 16 March 1872 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the final of the first staging of the Football Association Challenge Cup, which became the primary cup competition in English football and the oldest football competition in the world. Fifteen teams entered the competition in its first season and, due to the rules in place at the time, Wanderers reached the final having won only one match in the four preceding rounds. In the semi-finals, they drew with the Scottish club Queen's Park, but reached the final when the Scots withdrew from the competition as they could not afford to return to London for a replay.
The 1873 FA Cup final was an association football match between Wanderers F.C. and Oxford University A.F.C. on 29 March 1873 at the Lillie Bridge Grounds in London. It was the second final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. Unusually, the final kicked-off in the morning to avoid a clash with the annual Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race which was held on the same day. The Wanderers reached the final without playing a match, as the original rules of the competition stated that the holders would receive a bye straight to the final and other teams would compete to gain the other place in the final and challenge them for the trophy. Oxford reached the final when their semi-final opponents, the Scottish club Queen's Park, withdrew from the competition.
The 1874 FA Cup final was a football match between Oxford University and Royal Engineers on 14 March 1874 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the third final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. Both teams had previously reached the final but been defeated by Wanderers. The Engineers had reached the final with comparative ease, scoring sixteen goals and conceding only one in the four previous rounds. Oxford's opponents in the earlier rounds had included two-time former winners Wanderers.
The 1875 FA Cup final was a football match between Royal Engineers and Old Etonians on 13 March 1875 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the fourth final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. Heading into the final, the Royal Engineers were playing in their third final after losing the 1872 and 1874 finals while the Old Etonians were playing in their first FA Cup final.
The 1901 FA Cup final was an association football match between Sheffield United and Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, 20 April 1901 at the Crystal Palace stadium in south London. It was the final match of the 1900–01 FA Cup, the 30th edition of the world's oldest football knockout competition, and England's primary cup competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, better known as the FA Cup.
The 1877 FA Cup final was a football match between Wanderers and Oxford University on 24 March 1877 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the sixth final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. Wanderers were the reigning cup-holders and had won the competition three times in total. Oxford had also previously won the tournament, making this the first FA Cup final played between two former winners. Wanderers had reached the final without conceding a goal, defeating Cambridge University in the semi-finals. Oxford had only played three matches in the five rounds prior to the final due to a combination of byes and opponents withdrawing.
The 1876 FA Cup final was an association football match between Wanderers F.C. and Old Etonians F.C. on 11 March 1876 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the fifth final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup. The Wanderers had won the Cup on two previous occasions. The Etonians were playing in their second consecutive final, having lost in the 1875 match after a replay. Both teams had conceded only one goal in the four rounds of the competition prior to the final. In the semi-finals, the Wanderers defeated the Swifts and the Etonians beat the 1874 Cup winners Oxford University.
The 1886 FA Cup final was a football match between Blackburn Rovers and West Bromwich Albion on Saturday, 3 April 1886 at Kennington Oval in south London. The result was a goalless draw. Albion wanted to play extra time but Blackburn declined and so a replay was necessary. This took place a week later at the Racecourse Ground in Derby, the first venue outside London to stage an FA Cup final match. Blackburn won 2–0 to win the tournament for the third successive time. Following Wanderers (1876–1878), Blackburn were the second team to win three successive finals and, as of 2023, remain the last to do so. Their goals were scored by Jimmy Brown and Joe Sowerbutts. Both matches were refereed by Major Francis Marindin.
Shropshire Wanderers F.C. was an amateur association football club based in Shrewsbury, England. The club was active during the 1870s and once reached the FA Cup semi-finals.
Thomas Bridges Hughes was an English amateur footballer who was the first player to score two goals in an FA Cup Final, with Wanderers in 1876. He subsequently had a long career as a schoolteacher.
Harrow Chequers Football Club was a football club from London, England in the 1860s to early 1890s. It played as the Harrow Chequers from 1865 to 1876, when it was then renamed the Old Harrovians, and continued play until at least 1891. Derived from former pupils of Harrow School, the club was involved in the formation of the FA Cup in 1871. It was slated to play in three of the first six FA Cup competitions in the 1870s, but they forfeited each time, and never contested an FA Cup match as the Chequers. One of their players, however, Morton Betts, is remembered for scoring the first goal in the first ever FA Cup Final in 1872, which is essentially all that is remembered today of the club. However, as the Old Harrovians, the team had some more success, including reaching the semifinals of the 1877–78 FA Cup.
Lieut. Robert Shafto Hedley was an English soldier and footballer. He was the captain of the Royal Engineers team that reached the final of the FA Cup in 1878, where they were defeated 3–1 by the Wanderers.
Charles Coleridge Mackarness was the Archdeacon of the East Riding between 1898 and 1916. In his youth, he had been a keen amateur sportsman and played twice in the FA Cup Final for Oxford University, being on the victorious side in 1874 and runner-up in the previous year.
Colonel William Merriman was a British officer in the Royal Engineers who played as a goalkeeper in three FA Cup Finals, winning the cup in 1875.
Philip Charles Novelli was an amateur English footballer and merchant. He won the FA Cup with Old Etonians in 1882 playing as a left-sided forward.