On This Day: Palace play first-ever FA Cup tie (1871)

Indeed, the Glaziers achieved a number of FA Cup firsts that season, 10 years after forming as a club in 1861. Below, we republish research from historian Peter Manning, who explains why Crystal Palace were instrumental in the competition's founding, and what other landmarks we set in our formative FA Cup years – long before the ultimate landmark we experienced earlier this year...

Following its foundation in 1863, the Football Association was quite a fragile organisation. After the great debate over whose rules should be followed had been settled, the ‘rugby’ clubs had resigned en masse and only the few ‘soccer’ clubs remained, but this was all to change in 1866.

At the FA’s 1866 AGM, John Alcock, one of the association’s early Founding Fathers, retired from the FA and was replaced by his younger brother, Charles Alcock, who was to become a driving force of Association Football for the next 25 years.

Charles Alcock was always looking for ways to increase the FA’s influence and in July 1871 put forward the idea of a Challenge Cup that was open to all association members.

It must be remembered that, at this time, football was still a wholly amateur game and clubs did not play in leagues. They simply played friendlies against each other. Alcock’s idea of a Challenge Cup meant all members of the FA could compete against other member clubs across the country and, being a ‘knockout cup’, the winner of the final would, for a year, be crowned the best team in the country.

The FA’s secretary was instructed put the idea to all member clubs and ask for subscriptions to purchase the cup.

The response was positive and Alcock held a further FA meeting in his office at the Sportsman newspaper (Alcock was a sporting journalist) in October 1871, in which all the member clubs’ captains were invited. Here the creation of the cup was formally proposed and unanimously carried.

Douglas Allport, Crystal Palace captain and FA committee member, made his contribution to the evening by proposing a sub-committee “frame a code of rules” for the new cup. This was also passed.

The rules were agreed at a further meeting on October 23rd and 15 teams were put into the draw for the first round. Crystal Palace were drawn to play Hitchin on this day (11th November), a team they had never played before, and the ‘odd man out’, Hampstead Heathens, were given a bye to the second round.

The first round was a bit chaotic, with two teams being given walk overs because their opponents withdrew and the Scottish club, Queen’s Park, and Donington School were both allowed through to the second round because they couldn’t agree a venue for their first-round match!

Palace and Hitchin played the first ever FA Cup draw, 0-0, on 11th November, and under the rules of the time both teams went through to the second round.

A report from the time paid much attention to the weather – strong winds and rain – and described a spirited, even game with “impetuous” Palace forwards and Hitchin having “slightly the best of it towards the end”.

Palace’s line-up that day read: J. Turner (GK) D. Allport (C), A. Morten, J. Cockerell, A.J. Heath, W. Bouch, C.E. Smith, F.B. Soden, H. Daukes, W.C. Foster, T.F. Spreckley.

In the second round, Crystal Palace beat Maidenhead United 3-0 at the Crystal Palace but then went on to play another 0-0 draw against the Wanderers in the third round.

Again, both teams were allowed to go through to the semi-final where Palace would play the Royal Engineers, or ‘the Sappers’, as they were known. In the interim period the FA appointed a sub-committee comprising Alcock, Palace’s Douglas Allport and Upton Park’s Alfred Stair “to select and purchase the new Challenge Cup”.

In the two semi-finals, both played on Surrey’s cricket ground at the Oval, Queen’s Park and Wanderers and Crystal Palace and the Engineers both played out further 0-0 draws. Queen’s Park could afford neither the time nor the money to come back to London again, so Wanderers were given a pass into the final.

But what to about Crystal Palace and the Royal Engineers? This time both teams could not go through to the next round because the next was the last - the final - so the FA ruled that their semi-final would have to be replayed, making it the first-ever FA Cup replay.

In the replay, Palace could not call on all their star payers and lost 3-0, with the Sappers playing a very physical game. Henry Renny-Tailyour, the only player to have ever been capped in both Association and Rugby Football for England, scored two of the Engineers’ goals.

The final was held a week later at the Oval, with the Engineers favourites to win. But the Wanderers fielded a very strong side and took a 1-0 lead through Morton Peto Betts, who usually played for Harrow Chequers, “by some of the most splendid play ever witnessed”.

The Wanderers managed to hold their 1-0 lead, no doubt helped by an injury to one of the Engineers’ best players who “had the misfortune to fracture his collar-bone very shortly after the commencement of play”.

They ran out winners of the first FA Cup, the first and oldest national football competition in the world – one which Crystal Palace were instrumental in founding.

Who knew, back then, that just the 154 years later, Palace would have their own day lifting the trophy?

With continued thanks to Peter Manning.