The Youdan Football Cup, also known as the Youdan Cup, was an 1867 Sheffield rules football competition. Preceding the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

by more than four years, it was among the first tournaments in any code of football.

Background

Thomas Youdan, seen in 1865 The competition took its name from a local theatre owner,

Thomas Youdan Thomas Youdan was a theatre proprietor in Sheffield, England, known for sponsoring the Youdan Football Cup, the first ever multi-club tournament in the history of football. Youdan was born in Streetthorpe near Doncaster, the son of a farm l ...

, who sponsored the competition and provided the trophy.

Rules

On 28 January 1867, representatives of thirteen football clubs from the Sheffield area met at the Adelphi Hotel to form the "Youdan Prize Committee". The committee drew up the following regulations to govern the tournament: * Matches would be played under

Sheffield Rules The Sheffield Rules was a code of football devised and played in the English city of Sheffield between 1858 and 1877. The rules were initially created and revised by Sheffield Football Club, with responsibility for the laws passing to the Shef ...

. * Matches would start at three o'clock, with two umpires and one referee. * There would be 12 players on each side. * Games would last ninety minutes. If the scores were tied, up to one hour of extra time would be played, with the first team to score during this period being declared the winner. If scores were still tied after extra time, the match would be replayed. After the first round, the committee added a new rule that "the referee shall have power to award a Free Kick to the opponents of any Club, which makes more than three fouls or kicks-out, when the ball is being thrown in, if he (the referee) considers those fouls or kicks-out to be intentional".

Participating teams

Format

The competition was organized as a straight knockout tournament, with two exceptions: * Because twelve teams entered the tournament, there were three teams remaining after two rounds: one team drawn at random, received a bye to the final, while the other two teams played a semi-final to determine the other finalist. * After the final had been played, it was decided to hold a second-place playoff between the losing finalist and the losing semi-finalist. The semi-final, final and second-place playoff were all held at

Bramall Lane Bramall Lane is a association football, football stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, which is the home of Sheffield United F.C., Sheffield United. The stadium was originally a cricket ground, built on a road named after the Bramal ...

, which at the time was primarily a

cricket 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 ...

ground.

Results

Under the Sheffield Rules of the time, the rouge was used as a tiebreaker if both teams scored an equal number of goals. Of the thirteen matches played in the tournament, seven were goalless, of which six were decided by rouges. Only one goal was scored after the first round. In the results below, rouges are shown in brackets beneath the main scoreline.

First Round

Second Round

Replay

Semi-finals

Final

Second place play-off

Trophy

The Youdan Prize Committee invited members of the public to submit their proposed designs for the trophy. The creator of the entry judged the best would be rewarded by Youdan with a prize of one

sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'. The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...

. This prize was initially awarded to a Mr Jarvis, of Roscoe Works. His design was subsequently combined with that of another entrant: Mr. Topham, engraver, who was awarded a further prize of one pound. Before the semi-final, it was decided that the second-placed club would also be awarded a prize, to be funded by an admission fee of 3d at the semi-final and final. This prize ended up being valued at £2 10s. The trophies were presented at a dinner held at the Adelphi Hotel on Monday 11 March. Because the winning design required "protracted time ..in its manufacture", it had not been completed in time for the ceremony.Harvey (2005), p. 289 In its place, a "richly-ornamented claret jug", created by Martin, Hall, and Co., was awarded to Hallam. Youdan was absent through illness, so the trophy was presented by Mr J. Birley to J. C. Shaw, Hallam's captain. The second prize, a "double-handed goblet ..enriched with athletic figures", was awarded to Norfolk. The inscription on the cup awarded to Hallam reads: Shaw presented the trophy to the members of the Hallam Club at a dinner after the final match of their season, played at Sandygate on Saturday 16 March. The first-place trophy was subsequently lost. It did not resurface again until 1997, when a Scottish antiques collector contacted Hallam F.C. to tell them that he was in possession of it – they subsequently bought it back for £1,600. Since then it has been valued to be worth at least £100,000 by silver specialist

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of the

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