Alcock Proposes the Challenge Cup
- When
- 20 July 1871
- Where
- offices of The Sportsman newspaper (sourced); Freemasons' Tavern, London (legacy assertion, uncorroborated)
Charles William Alcock, as FA Secretary, proposed the establishment of a Challenge Cup for all Association clubs on 20 July 1871.
Alcock proposed that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association, inviting all clubs belonging to the Association to compete. The proposal is credited with giving birth to the FA Cup, first played during the 1871–72 season and the oldest national football competition in the world. One passage places the FA Secretary at the offices of The Sportsman newspaper on 20 July 1871; the event scope also records the Freemasons' Tavern in London as the venue, but no supplied passage corroborates that location.
Sources
- Charles W. Alcock Wikipedia, revision of 2026-04-03
- FA Cup Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-27
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.