The 1987–88 Associate Members' Cup, known as the 1987–88 Sherpa Van Trophy for sponsorship reasons, was the seventh staging of a secondary football league tournament, and the fifth staging of the
Associate Members' Cup, a knockout competition for
English football
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 ...
clubs in the
Third
Third or 3rd may refer to:
Numbers
* 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3
* , a fraction of one third
* 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system
Places
* 3rd Street (di ...
and
Fourth Divisions (now known as
League One and
Two
2 (two) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 1 and preceding 3. It is the smallest and the only even prime number.
Because it forms the basis of a duality, it has religious and spiritual significance in many ...
).
The winners were
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club ( ), commonly referred to as Wolves, is a professional association football, football club based in Wolverhampton, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football league s ...
, who defeated
Burnley
Burnley () is a town and the administrative centre of the wider Borough of Burnley in Lancashire, England, with a 2021 population of 78,266. It is north of Manchester and east of Preston, at the confluence of the River Calder and River B ...
2–0 in the final. This marked the first time two previous English champions have met in the final of this competition, and made Wolves the first former champions to have won the trophy, Portsmouth the only other having won the EFL trophy in 2019.
The competition began on 13 October 1987 and ended with the final on 29 May 1988.
The tournament begins with clubs divided into a Northern and a Southern section, and teams entering a preliminary group stage. Each section then gradually eliminates the qualifying teams in knock-out fashion until each has a winning finalist. At this point, the two winning finalists faced each other in the combined final for the honour of the trophy.
Preliminary round
Northern Section
, -
! colspan=4 , Play-off to determine second place:
, -
Southern Section
First round
Northern Section
Southern Section
Quarter-finals
Northern Section
Southern Section
Area semi-finals
Northern Section
Southern Section
Area finals
Northern Area final
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''Burnley won 3–1 on aggregate.''
Southern Area final
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''Wolverhampton Wanderers won 4–1 on aggregate.''
Final
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:1987-88 Associate Members' Cup
EFL Trophy seasons
Associate Members' Cup
Associate Members' Cup