On this day in 1874 Oxford University won the FA Cup, beating the Royal Engineers 2-0. I’m not a football fan. In the last match that I watched George Best and Bobby Charlton were playing. It was against Chelsea for whom Peter Bonetti (the Cat) was in goal. My father always seemed more interested in the football results for checking to see if he’d won the pools (yesteryear’s version of the national lottery) than any interest in the results. However he was a director of Bexleyheath and Welling United for a while, and I watched a few matches with him, freezing my bits off.
I was reminded of Oxford’s FA Cup win by the Vincent’s Club newsletter. Vincent’s Club is the Oxford University Sportsmen’s and Sportswomen’s club. This month’s quiz asked who the last UK Prime Minister to have played first class cricket was. It was of course Sir Alec Douglas-Hume, a former MCC President and Oxford University player, although not a blue.
Oxford’s win was the third year of the FA Cup. Oxford had played in 1873 and lost to Wanderers, who were the Old Harrovian side for former pupils of Harrow School. Wanderers won the first two FA Cups, beating the Royal Engineers in 1872 then Oxford in 1873. Before the teams more familiar to current fans as FA Cup winners began to dominate, Old Etonians won in 1879 and 1882.
I posted yesterday about an upcoming exhibition at the Bodleian and on the Bodleian’s website I found an article about Oxford University’s FA Cup winning side. Their captain, Cuthbert Ottaway, also holds the distinction of captaining England in the first official international football match which was against Scotland on 30th November 1872.
Oxford University’s FA Cup win was at the Oval, which is my excuse for a link to the cricketing career of Sir Alec Douglas-Hume. The first FA Cup final to be played at Wembley was in 1923, it was known as the Empire Stadium back then. Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham 2 – 0.
There is a photograph of Oxford’s FA Cup winning side on the wiki page. But I thought I’d ask AI to provide a portrait of them for me, so that’s the image at the top of this post. I might occasionally use AI to draft some text for a post, but I then have to edit it for factual errors, and style. My writing is, I think, far better that AI’s. But AI is better at painting. I still worry about AI’s accuracy though. Their OU FA Cup winning side appears to include fifteen players. No wonder they won!