The Morning FA Cup Final

1873 FA Cup Final

The Morning FA Cup Final

The 1873 FA Cup final between Oxford University and Wanderers was played at 11 AM. I believe this is the earliest time any FA Cup final was ever played.

They decided to play at that time to give interested parties the ability to watch a boat race later that afternoon:

From The Morning Post, March 29, 1873, page 3

Interestingly, there weren’t many contemporary newspaper accounts of the final — not that I’ve been able to find, anyway. Here’s the longest I was able to locate:

From The Observer, March 30, 1873, page 6

Most other accounts look like this:

From The Birmingham Daily Post, March 31, 1873, page 8

Again — this gives you an idea of how popular the association game was in those days. It was a rugby world.