FA Cup
£25 OLD FA CUP FETCHES £760,000 TO SELLER
BY DUNCAN MACKAY
The second edition of the Football Association (FA) Cup trophy, which cost £25 ($33/€28) to make, has been sold on Tuesday at auction for nearly £760,000 ($977,000/€834,000).
The historic silver trophy formed as a two-handled cup and cover, surmounted by a figure of a footballer with a football at his feet, was awarded to the winning team in the oldest national football competition in the world between 1896 and 1910.
The trophy had been up for sale by West Ham United co-owner David Gold.
Gold had bought the trophy in 2005 at auction for £478,000 while chairman of Birmingham City, claiming at the time he was preserving the piece of history for the country.
The final price at Bonhams was £759,062 (£976,080/€833,014), including the buyer’s premium.
The trophy, which is 50.7 centimetres high with the plinth, bears the winners’ names from 1872 onwards, including Wanderers, winners of five of the first seven finals, including three in a row.
The team based in Upper Norwood in London were then presented with the trophy in perpetuity only to apply the “Corinthian” spirit of the amateur game at the time and return it to The FA – ironically, they never won it again.
Other amateur teams who won it during this period included Oxford University, Royal Engineers, Old Etonians, Clapham Rovers and Old Carthusians before the southern stranglehold on the trophy was broken in 1883 by Blackburn Olympic, leading to the dominance of clubs from Northern England and the Midlands.
The first winners of the new trophy in 1896 were Sheffield Wednesday, who beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 in the final to claim their first major honour.
First-time winners of this actual trophy included Manchester City, Manchester United, Everton, Newcastle United, Tottenham Hotspur, Nottingham Forest and Sheffield United.
In 1897, Aston Villa defeated Everton 3-2 in front of 65,891 spectators at Crystal Palace to become only the second team ever to win “the Double” of the Cup and Football League First Division Championship in the same season.
Two-time winners of this trophy included Bury, who lifted it in 1900 and 1903.
Last August the club were expelled from the English Football League, having been members since 1894, because of financial difficulties.
The trophy was retired in 1910 after Newcastle’s 2-0 victory over Barnsley and presented the following year to Lord Kinnaird by The FA to mark his 21st anniversary as President of the national governing body.
Kinnaird had played and scored a goal in the second-ever FA Cup final in 1873 when Wanderers defeated Oxford University 2-0.
He went on to play in a further eight finals for either Wanderers or Old Etonians and ended up on the winning side on five occasions in total between 1873 and 1883.
His record of playing in nine FA Cup finals is one that stands to this day.
Kinnaird’s record of five wins in the competition stood until 2010, when it was broken by Ashley Cole, who played for Arsenal and Chelsea.
-insidethegames
Erling Haaland scored a hat-trick as Manchester City crushed Liverpool 4-0 at the Etihad Stadium on Saturday to cruise into the FA Cup semi-finals.
Champions Liverpool played well in the opening half-hour with Mohamed Salah wasting an early chance, but once Haaland had scored from the spot in the 37th minute after a foul on Nico O’Reilly, their resistance crumbled.
Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk conceded the penalty with a rash challenge, and there was little the Dutch defender could do as City played scintillating attacking football for the remainder of the game.
His blond hair swinging behind him in a ponytail, Haaland netted his second two minutes into first-half stoppage time with a well-placed header from an excellent Antoine Semenyo cross.
Semenyo got on the scoresheet himself five minutes after the break, latching on to a ball in behind from Rayan Cherki and chipping it beautifully past Giorgi Mamardashvili, and Haaland completed his treble with a shot off the underside of the crossbar in the 57th minute.
Liverpool’s woes continued when Mohamed Salah, who is set to leave the club at the end of the season, capped off a poor performance by having his penalty saved by James Trafford, snuffing out any faint hopes Liverpool might have had of a comeback
As the game turned into a victory parade, many Liverpool fans started heading for the exits, and City manager Pep Guardiola rang the changes, replacing Haaland with Omar Marmoush, the Norwegian striker receiving a standing ovation as he left the field.
In the other quarter-finals, Chelsea take on Port Vale and Southampton host Arsenal later on Saturday, with Leeds United travelling to West Ham United on Sunday.
The semi-finals will take place at Wembley, and Haaland is relishing a return to the stadium.
“First half, we struggled a bit, but then we after around 30 minutes we kept going and in the end it’s an amazing game. Another Wembley trip for us is amazing and important,” he told broadcaster TNT.
“I think (my form this season) has been a bit too much up and down, which is not good enough. I cannot keep on thinking about what I could have done differently or what didn’t happen, or what happened. I have to think about the next game.”
-Reuters
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Arsenal will be without injured England attacker Noni Madueke when they face Southampton in Saturday’s FA Cup quarter-final, but Martin Odegaard and Jurrien Timber may return from injury, manager Mikel Arteta said.
Madueke was among the 11 Arsenal players who withdrew from international duty last month over injuries and fitness management, as the club eye their first Premier League title since 2004.
“When you have to communicate the state of every player, we are always honest and a medical decision had to be made. That was clear what the conclusion was,” Arteta told reporters on Friday.
“It makes us so proud that we had that many players in the national team. Players are desperate to play for their nation. I know how important it is to them. We are fully supportive of that and when we can do it, we do it.”
Madueke picked up a knee injury during England’s friendly with Uruguay, missing the game against Japan. But Arteta said his condition was not as bad as a knee injury that kept him out for six weeks.
Martin Zubimendi, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Timber, Leandro Trossard, Eberechi Eze, Bukayo Saka and Declan Rice were unavailable for their countries.
Arteta did not disclose how many of them will be available for Saturday’s game, as Arsenal look to shake off last month’s League Cup final loss to Manchester City with a return to Wembley in the FA Cup semi-finals.
“We’re in a position right now where we need to make the strongest line-up we possibly can to win every competition,” he said. ” We are two or three games away from the FA Cup and we know how important that competition is for us.”
-Reuters
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Manchester City will look to secure a historic eighth straight semi-final appearance in the FA Cup when they face Liverpool on Saturday, manager Pep Guardiola said.
City beat Arsenal to win the League Cup before the international break, and Guardiola is hoping his team maintain the momentum as they fight to add the FA Cup and Premier League to this season’s trophy haul.
“Once you finish one, it is the next one,” Guardiola told reporters on Friday.
“Tomorrow we have the chance to reach an incredible milestone, to make eight semi-finals in a row. It’s never happened… it is a prestigious competition, and one of the toughest, special opponents for all of us, Liverpool.”
City have dominated English football with six Premier League titles, two FA Cups and five League Cups since Guardiola joined in 2016, but Liverpool have been a constant thorn in his side throughout his coaching career.
As a coach, Guardiola has only nine victories and seven draws in 26 matches against Liverpool, his worst win rate against a Premier League club.
City have beaten Liverpool twice in the Premier League this season, but had to dig deep for a late comeback when they won 2-1 at Anfield in February.
“So many times they have been the rival, the biggest, biggest one… top contender, top class players, all of them. Hopefully we have to perform in the level we did against Arsenal to reach the next step,” Guardiola said.
The manager also praised Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah, who has announced his departure in the summer.
“Absolutely. One of the greatest. The numbers, the consistency. What a player… absolute legend, of course for Liverpool, but (also) for the Premier League,” Guardiola said.
Guardiola, however, avoided commenting on his own midfielder Rodri, who said he was open to a move to Real Madrid when his contract with City runs out at the end of this season.
“No clue, no opinion… because I know the intention of the club, I know the intention, I think, of him, but I don’t know,” Guardiola said.’
-Reuters
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