The 1871–72 season was the first season of competitive

association football in England Football is the most popular sport in England. Widely regarded as the birthplace of modern football, the first official rules of the game were established in England in 1863. The country is home to the world's first football league, the oldest ...

The Football Association The Football Association (the FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest footb ...

introduced their Football Association Challenge Cup (now better known as the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

), a

knockout tournament A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

which is the world's oldest national-level football competition. When the Football Association football was formed in 1863, the sport was played mainly by

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, or teams with public school roots, and

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was the norm. This remained the case until the 1880s, when working-class teams began to vie for supremacy.

FA Cup

The competition began on 11 November 1871 when four matches were played. Fifteen clubs had entered but three of those withdrew so there were just twelve actual participants. They included the leading Scottish club, Queen's Park of Glasgow who reached the semi-final in which they drew 0–0 with the eventual winners Wanderers. A replay was required but Queen's Park could not afford the travel costs and withdrew. The other semi-final between

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

and the original

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition buildin ...

was also drawn and the Engineers won the replay 3–0. The first-ever final was won by Wanderers who defeated Royal Engineers 1–0 at

Kennington Oval Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between th ...

in south London. The goal was scored by

Morton Betts Morton Peto Betts (30 August 1847 – 19 April 1914) was a leading English sportsman of the late 19th century. He was notable for scoring the first goal in an English FA Cup Finals, FA Cup final. Early life Betts was the son of Edward Betts of ...

after 15 minutes' play. Under the original rules of the competition, Wanderers automatically qualified for the next season's final to defend their trophy.

Representative matches

During the season, two matches between teams representing England and Scotland were played at the Kennington Oval. The first was on 18 November 1871 and England won 2–1 with both goals scored by Robert Walker in the first half. Scotland's scorer, near the end of the match, was

Henry Renny-Tailyour Henry Waugh Renny-Tailyour (9 October 1849 – 15 June 1920) was a British amateur all-round sportsman who appeared for Scotland in some of the earliest international football and rugby union matches, remaining to this day the only player to have ...

. The second match was on 24 February 1872 and England won 1–0 with a goal by Charlie Clegg midway through the first half. The crowd was less than a thousand. These matches are no longer recognised as full internationals because the Scotland team consisted entirely of

Anglo-Scot Anglo is a prefix indicating a relation to, or descent from England, English culture, the English people or the English language, such as in the term ''Anglosphere''. It is often used alone, somewhat loosely, to refer to people of British de ...

s based in the London area, so there were no Scottish residents or players from Scottish clubs. Nevertheless, the games were the forerunners of international football which began the following season when the first official match was played in Glasgow on 30 November 1872.''Glasgow Herald'' on 13 February 1872

Honours

(''Note'': figures in parentheses display the club's tournament record as winners/runners-up.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:1871-72 in English football