March 16, 1872: The 1st FA Cup Final

Wanderers Football Club, 1872

March 16, 1872: The Football Association holds its 1st FA Cup Final, at the Kennington Oval in South London.

The First Round of games was played on November 11, 1871. Barnes FC (Football Club) of Barnes, South London defeated Civil Service FC of Chiswick, West London. Hitchin of Hertfordshire and Crystal Palace of South London (although not the current team of that name) played to a 0-0 draw. Maidenhead of Berkshire defeated Marlow of Buckinghamshire 2-0. Clapham Rovers of South London beat Upton Park of East London (not to be confused with current team West Ham United) 3-0.

Wanderers FC of Leytonstone, East London advanced when Harrow Chequers of South London -- for whom the Kennington Oval was their home ground -- dropped out of the tournament. Royal Engineers AFC of Chatham, Kent advanced when Reigate Priory of Reigate, Surrey dropped out.

Queen's Park of Glasgow, the only Scotland-based team that would ever be permitted to play in the tournament, and the Donington School of Donington, Lincolnshire could not agree on a date to play, so both were advanced to the Second Round. So were Hampstead Heathens of North London, who were given a First Round bye.

The Second Round began on December 16. Crystal Palace beat Maidenhead 3-0, and Wanderers beat Clapham Rovers 1-0. On December 23, Barnes and Hampstead Heathens drew 1-1. On January 6, 1872, Hampstead Heathens won a replay, 1-0. And on January 10, Royal Engineers beat Hitchin 5-0.

There were now an odd number of teams remaining, and Queen's Park, essentially the Scotland national team, were given a by to the Semifinal without having played a game. On January 20, Wanderers and Crystal Palace played to a scoreless draw at Clapham Common. Rather than force a replay, the FA let both teams advance to the Semifinals. On January 27, Royal Engineers beat Hampstead Heathens 3-0.

Both Semifinals were held at the Oval, one of the world's leading cricket grounds. On February 17, Crystal Palace and Royal Engineers played to a 0-0 draw. On March 5, Queens Park and Wanderers played to a 0-0 draw. Rather than play another game so far from home, Queen's Park withdrew, allowing Wanderers to reach the Final. On March 9, Royal Engineers won their replay against Crystal Palace, 3-0.

So it was Wanderers vs. Royal Engineers, in the Final on March 16. Neither team had what we would now consider a manager. Wanderers played with goalkeeper Reginald Welch; fullback Edgar Lubbock; halfback Albert Thompson; and forwards C.W. Alcock, Edward Bowen, Alexander Bonsor, Morton Betts, William Crake, Thomas Hooman, Walpole Vidal and Charles Wollaston. Bowen was already the schoolmaster at the prestigious Harrow prep school, and wrote their school song, "Forty Years On." He was from County Wicklow, Ireland. The rest of the team was English.

The Royal Engineers were all Army officers: Goalkeeper, William Merriman; fullbacks, Captain Francis Marindin and Lieutenant George Addison; halfback, Lieutenant Alfred Goodwyn; and forwards, all Lieutenants: Hugh Mitchell, Edmund Creswell, Henry Renny-Tailyour, Henry Rich, Herbert Muirhead, Edmond Cotter and Adam Bogle. Creswell was from Gibraltar. Cotter was Irish. Mitchell, Renny-Tailyour, Muirhead and Bogle were Scots. The rest were English.

Alfred Stair, a civil servant from Greenwich, Kent, served as the referee. Alcock, from Sunderland, was the Wanderers' captain, and also the captain of England's national football and cricket teams at the time. Essentially, the FA Cup was his idea. Goalkeeper Merriman, from Kensington, West London, was the Engineers' captain, and would eventually rise to the rank of Colonel in the Army.

Both teams wore shirts with horizontal stripes: Engineers of red and blue; Wanderers of those colors plus yellow. Engineers wore blue shorts, Wanderers white, so that's how the players told each other apart.

The Engineers had defeated the Wanderers in a famous game in 1871, and were favored to win. But when Alcock won the coin toss, he used a bit of gamesmanship, choosing to defend the Harleyford Road end of the Oval, putting the Sun and the wind in the Engineers' faces.

But what bothered them more was a collision that left Creswell with a broken collarbone. Substitutes would not be allowed in English football until 1966, so he played most of the game on the wing, not running much. This hampered the "Combination Game" of the Engineers, the first team to use aggressive passing, as opposed to the dribbling game then common.

Just 15 minutes into the game, Vidal made a long dribble, then passed from an acute angle, and Betts scored. Under the rules of the time, the teams switched sides after each goal. The Engineers now had the Sun and the wind to their backs, but it did them no good. The Wanderers thought they had a 2nd goal, from Alcock, but it was waved off, due to a handball by Wollaston.

The Engineers put on a furious performance in the waning minutes of the game, but the Wanderer defense held, and so did the 1-0 score. The Field, a sports-themed newspaper of the time, called it "some of the best play, individually and collectively, that has ever been shown in an Association game." In other words, fittingly, the 1st FA Cup Final was a classic.

Later in the year, on November 30, 1872, England and Scotland played to a 0-0 draw in the 1st-ever match between national teams, in Glasgow. Queen's Park, as I said, made up the Scotland team. Welch moved from goal to halfback to play for that England team, and was the only man on either side to have played in both games.

Wanderers would win the Cup again in 1873, 1876, 1877 and 1878, the last of these also over Royal Engineers. Only Wollaston played in all 5. In spite of this success, the club was dissolved in 1887, not even making it to the founding of the Football League in 1888. A new team with the name was founded in 2009, but remains far down in the English "football pyramid." 

The Engineers won the Cup in 1875, defeating Old Etonians in the Final. The club is still in existence, but plays in the Army Football Association, a very minor league.

Engineer Goodwyn died in 1874, only 24, from a horseriding accident. Engineer Rich, having survived the Zulu War of 1879 and the Egyptian Expedition of 1882, was also killed by a horse-related accident, while playing polo in 1884.

Alcock died in 1907. Referee Stair and scorer Betts both lived until 1914, ages 69 and 66 respectively. Merriman died in 1917, age 78. World War I had nothing to do with any of these men's deaths: Indeed, all of those men were retired from the Army by the time that war started. Addison was the last surviving Engineer, living until 1937. Welch was the last surviving player from the game, living until 1939.

The Oval, home of Surrey County Cricket Club despite its presence within the city limits of London, opened in 1845, and also hosted the FA Cup Final every year from 1874 to 1892. It has also hosted rugby, but is best known for cricket. The current grandstand dates only to 2005, and seats 27,500.

A recent photo of The Oval

*

March 16, 1872 was a Saturday. Any other English football games played that day appear to have been lost to history. Basketball and hockey hadn't been invented yet. It was too early to play baseball, and the wrong time of the year to play the American version of football. So there were no other scores on this historic day.