Morton Peto Betts (30 August 1847 – 19 April 1914)
England Football Online. Retrieved 2018-09-15. was a leading English sportsman of the late 19th century. He was notable for scoring the first goal in an English FA Cup Final.

Early life

Betts was the son of Edward Betts of

Preston Hall, Aylesford Preston Hall is a former manorial home and associated estate in Aylesford in the English county of Kent. It dates to the Norman period and was owned by the Culpepper family for over 400 years. Part of the estate became the Royal British Legion ...

, a civil engineering contractor, and Ann Betts, née Peto.Carlaw D ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'', pp.43–44.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-06-02.)Ambrose
Brief profile of M.P.Betts
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-03-26. Edward was in business Ann's brother, the railway entrepreneur Samuel Morton Peto, the pair operating as Peto and Betts until the firm was declared bankrupt in 1866. Morton was educated at

Harrow School (The Faithful Dispensation of the Gifts of God) , established = (Royal Charter) , closed = , type = Public schoolIndependent schoolBoarding school , religion = Church of E ...

.Mr Morton Peto Betts
Obituaries in 1914, '' Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', 1915. Retrieved 2017-03-26.

Sporting life

Betts was an amateur association footballer and

cricketer Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

. His most notable moment came when he scored the only goal in the

1872 FA Cup Final The 1872 FA Cup Final was a football match between Wanderers and Royal Engineers on 16 March 1872 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the final of the first staging of the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA C ...

for Wanderers, the first final of the tournament. The goal was a relatively simple 'tap-in', coming as a result of

Walpole Vidal Robert Walpole Sealy Vidal, who from 1892 was Robert Walpole Sealy (3 September 1853 – 5 November 1914) was a prominent 19th century footballer who featured in the first three FA Cup Finals for two different clubs. In March 1870 he played in En ...

's successful dribble through the

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

' defence. In the match, he played under the pseudonym AH Chequer; Betts played for

Harrow Chequers Harrow Chequers Football Club was a football club from London, England in the 1860s to early 1890s. It played as the Harrow Chequers from 1865 to 1876, when it was then renamed the Old Harrovians, and continued play until at least 1891. Derive ...

, a team associated with the school, who had been drawn to played Royal Engineers in the first round of the tournament but failed to fulfil the fixture. Betts usually played football as a full-back, though his one appearance for England national team – against Scotland in 1877 – was as a goalkeeper.Morton Peto Betts
EnglandStats. Retrieved 2020-03-28. By this time, he was with the Old Harrovians Football Club. He later became a referee, helped found the Kent Football Association and was a board member of the Football Association for 20 years. His sporting career also featured first-class cricket appearances for Middlesex (one match) and

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

s (two matches). He played club cricket for a variety of sides, including Harrow Wanderers, Incogniti and Band of Brothers, a side closely associated with the Kent county club, as well as for

Essex County Cricket Club Essex County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Essex. Founded in 1876, the club had minor county status until 1894 when ...

in 1884, before they became a first-class county. He was secretary of Essex between 1887 and 1890 before resigning to take up the post of secretary of the newly formed British Baseball AssociationCarlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 60–61.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-12-21.) and as a Director of

Preston North End Baseball Club Preston North End Baseball Club were a short lived English professional baseball club, who played their home games at Deepdale, competing for the 1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain. Preston North End Baseball Club Limited were for ...

in the

1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain The 1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain was the first, and to date only, professional baseball championship for the national baseball title of Great Britain. The National League's headquarters were located at 38 Holborn Viaduct, Londo ...

Later life

He married twice, first to Jane Bouch in 1879 and then to Jane Morgan in 1901. He spent his final years living in France, and died aged 66 at Menton, shortly before the outbreak of World War I.Morton Betts

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2020-06-02.

References

Giller, Norman; 2004; 'Football and all That'; Hodder and Stoughton; pp15–16;

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Betts, Morton 1847 births 1914 deaths Association football forwards Association football fullbacks Association football goalkeepers England international footballers England v Scotland representative footballers (1870–1872) English cricket administrators English cricketers English footballers Essex cricketers FA Cup Final players Harrow Chequers F.C. players Kent cricketers Middlesex cricketers Old Harrovians F.C. players Outfield association footballers who played in goal People educated at Harrow School Wanderers F.C. players 19th-century British businesspeople Baseball in the United Kingdom