The FA Cup is the oldest cup competition in the world. It is more than 150 years old. In the same year as the first ever FA Cup match, Germany was created, there was a Napoleon in captivity having been removed as leader of France, Queen Victoria opened the Royal Albert Hall, and the President of the United States was Civil War General Ulysses S. Grant. The FA Cup has survived from that alien, ancient time, to provide us with something that few other competitions in the world can provide. As unlikely as it may seem, it is still theoretically possible, a century and a half later, for a team that starts in the earliest rounds – today, and all over this first weekend of August, before the elite clubs have even remembered that the competition exists – to go all the way and win the competition. That’s something worth celebrating.
Only fifteen teams entered the original competition (this season there are 732), and it was won by Wanderers in front of just 2,000 fans at The Oval. They saw Morton Betts score the first FA Cup final goal, a tap in. But Jarvis Kenrick of Clapham Rovers holds the distinction of the first ever FA Cup goal, for Clapham Rovers as they beat Upton Park on 11th November, 1871. Notts County’s Harry Cursham is the FA Cup’s all time top scorer, with 49 goals between 1877 and 1891. Wimbledon’s Doc Dowden scored the most goals in a single year – 19, in 1929/30 – and Ted McDougall’s 9 for Bournemouth against Boscombe Athletic, in 1971, is the most in a single game. Much more recently Ashley Cole and Arsene Wenger have won the competition more times than anyone else, 7 times.
The competition spans all ages too. The 1924 final saw a 41 year old Billy Hampson play for Newcastle United, a record that stands almost a century later, while Curtis Weston was the youngest when he played for Millwall in 2004. Only a couple of years ago Bristol Manor Farm’s Evander Grubb became the cup’s youngest goalscorer, at a smidgen over 16. And while you might think it has become a global entity only recently, the first non-British player to win the Cup was American Julian Sturgess, in 1873. Canadian Edward Haggarty was the first non-Brit to captain a side to FA Cup Glory, Old Carthusians in 1881 (not Eric Cantona in 1996, as some have claimed). It did take a little longer for a foreign manager to win, however, and that distinction goes to Ruud Gullit, in 1997, with Chelsea.
The team with the most FA Cup goals is Tottenham, with 897, and Aston Villa have conceded the most with 539.
But really, it’s the giant-killings that stand out in the FA Cup. Whether its Ronnie Radford’s goal for Hereford that gets played as soon as the 3rd Round is drawn, Colchester beating title-challengers Leeds in 1971, or Sutton beating holders Coventry in 1989. Perhaps the earliest giant-killing was way back in 1907, when non-league Crystal Palace travelled to Newcastle United, second in the First Division at the time, and unbeaten at home, and won. In 1949 Sunderland, nicknamed The Bank of England for how much money they had spent assembling their squad, were drawn away at Yeovil, at that time deep in non-league. Level at 90 minutes, the match went to extra time as a dense bank of fog settled over Huish (before they moved to Huish Park), and a mishit pass let Yeovil’s Eric Bryant hit the winner. Surely the greatest upset of them all.
And so to 2022-23. The Cup has survived its second pandemic (after the 1919 Spanish ‘Flu, when it was already half a century old) and come strongly out the other side. It is a reminder of what is special about football, and what is special about this competition. Who will be this season’s Jarvis Kenrick? Who will be this season’s Morton Betts, come to that? Will we see another Ted McDougall, another Ronnie Radford, another Yeovil? And who will win it in May? The last team to win from outside the top flight was West Ham, in 1980. The last non-league team to win was Tottenham in 1901. The magic of this competition is that, for all the time that has passed, for all the money that is spent, those things can happen again. And if it happened then, why not now?
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