150-year-old FA cup medal expected to sell for thousands

By Ashley Pemberton via SWNS

An FA Cup medal handed out to the first club to win the trophy three years in a row - dating back more than 150 years - is expected to sell for £6,000 at auction.

The medal was issued to Wanderers FC players after they won the second of their three successive cups in 1877.

The team, whose captain Charles William Alcock founded the competition, beat Oxford University 2-1 in front of 3,000 people at Kennington Oval on March 24.

It was the sixth final of the world’s oldest football competition and was the fourth time Wanderers had won the cup.

The medal, which is inscribed 'Football Association Challenge Cup, Wanderers 1877' will go under the hammer later on May 26 at Ewbank's Auctioneers in Surrey.

Alastair McCrea, head of entertainment and sporting memorabilia, said: "An early Cup winner’s medal from the world’s oldest national football tournament is rare enough indeed.

"But to have one with such close associations with the founding father of the competition and the top team in the game at the time is as good as it gets."

Founded as Forest Football Club in 1859 in Leytonstone, east London the club changed its name to Wanderers in 1864.

It is thought the name was chosen because the club never had its own home ground.

Comprising mainly former pupils of the leading English public schools, Wanderers were one of the dominant teams in the early years of organised football.

The club won the competition five times in total and lifted the cup three years in succession from 1876-78.

That feat was repeated only once - six years later from 1884-86 by fellow footballing pioneers Blackburn Rovers.

At the time, the rule was that a team winning three times in a row would be able to keep the cup permanently.

But Alcock returned it on condition that the rule was changed and that no club would ever be able to keep it.

An early advocate of teamwork rather than individual glory, Alcock served as honorary secretary to the Football Association for 25 years until 1887.

He's is credited with being the founder of the FA Cup, the world’s first national football tournament.

In his position as FA secretary in 1871, he proposed: “That it is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association, for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete”.

In 1959 Geoffrey Green, Football Editor of The Times wrote: “C.W. Alcock, supported by the military discipline of Marindin and the social graces of Kinnaird, was the real driving force and genius in his position of secretary, a rank that was to grow to one of vast importance in the years of expansion ahead.

"Alcock was a true lover of sport and sportsmanship. For a quarter of a century he held the reins of administration while the character and significance of football underwent a crucial change.

"The part he played in all this evolution was beyond measure.

"That must be repeated, for it was his idea of the Cup and international football that finally set the game on its pedestal.

"He was the one who set a light to what was one day to become a world-wide fire.”

Despite the club’s unprecedented FA Cup record - and supplying the England team with 15 players - it did not survive long after.

Within a year, all the leading public schools had set up teams, attracting their old boys who had previously committed to teams such as Wanderers.

It was knocked out in the first round of the 1878-79 cup by Old Etonians in a game they lost 7-2.

By 1879-80, Wanderers reached the third round before losing again to Old Etonians.

More players left and by the 1880–81 season Wanderers had to withdraw from the FA Cup after being unable to raise a team for the scheduled first round match.

The club struggled on but folded three years later.

The medal has a pre-sale estimate of £4,000-6,000.

Live online bidding for is available via Ewbank’s website.