Birth of the FA Cup

Back to 1871

Birth of the FA Cup

While searching for articles about the birth of the FA Cup, I was somewhat surprised to find nothing.

That’s not to say that the Football Association and Charles Alcock were completely ignored in contemporary newspapers. It seems that the nascent competition simply wasn’t taken very seriously by the contemporary press.

Interestingly enough, Alcock did get some credit in the press of 1871 — but this was mostly for establishing international matches between England and Scotland:

From The Wrexham Advertiser, November 25, 1871, page 4

Whether this “football” refers to what we now know as association football or to rugby is unclear.

In fact, the question of whose rules should be used for each match was a major feature of the game in 1871. Take the mention of the rules at the head of this article, for instance:

From Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, October 17, 1871, page 3

“The non-catching ones” clearly indicates the association rules, which were actually still quite new at the time.

The question of using hands remained quite controversial:

From Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, October 10, 1871, page 3

The distinction seems silly to us today, of course: it’s odd to think of a football match played with catching. But that skill had been in place for decades by this time, and had a rich history in the various forms of football played in the schools. There’s a reason why every other variation of football that came out of the old schools has at least some form of catching.

There’s also a hint here about the pending development of the corner kick, which doesn’t come around until 1872.