FA Amateur Cup - History

History

Following the legalisation of professionalism within football, professional teams quickly came to dominate the sport's main national knock-out tournament, the FA Cup. In response to this, the committee of the country's oldest club, Sheffield F.C., suggested in 1892 the organisation of a separate national cup solely for amateur teams, and even offered to pay for the trophy itself. The Football Association (the FA) declined the club's offer, but a year later decided to organise just such a competition. N.L. Jackson of Corinthian F.C. was appointed chairman of the Amateur Cup sub-committee and arranged for the purchase of a trophy valued at £30.00, and the first tournament took place during the 1893–94 season. The entrants included 12 clubs representing the old boys of leading public schools, and Old Carthusians, the team for former pupils of Charterhouse School, won the first final, defeating Casuals. The old boy teams competed in the Amateur Cup until 1902, when disputes with the FA led to the formation of the Arthur Dunn Cup, a dedicated competition for such teams.

The Amateur Cup ended in 1974 when the FA abolished the distinction between professional and amateur clubs. The strongest amateur teams instead entered the FA Trophy, which had been set up five years earlier to cater for those teams outside The Football League which were professional rather than amateur. A new competition, the FA Vase, was set up to cater for the remaining amateur clubs, and was generally regarded as a direct replacement for the old competition.