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 ... Lillie Bridge, the site of the 1873 FA Cup final. The FA Cup competition began in the 1871-1872 season and was originally played between clubs of wealthy amateurs in the London area. It wasn't until a few years later that the professional clubs in the North became dominant. Originally, the FA Cup was going to be run like the Americas Cup in sailing; in a way which favoured the existing cup holders retaining it every year. The idea was that each year, there would be a knock-out competition between any other clubs who wanted to enter and the winner of that would get the right to challenge the existing holders and try to win the cup from them, at a venue to be decided by the existing holders. It was expected that the holders would almost always choose their own home ground but in fact that never happened. In 1872, there were no incumbent holders so the match was played at the Oval. It was won by a club called Wanderers who, as their name suggests, had no ground of their own so they chose to play the 1873 final here. After that, the rules were changed so that the incumbent cup holders got no preferential treatment and the final was always held at a neutral venue. UTC Time: 16:55, Sunday 30 August 2015 Local Time: 17:55, Sunday 30 August 2015 Estimate of longitude: 0° 11' 46.43" W = -0.196230° Estimate of latitude: 51° 29' 8.74" N = 51.485760° Possible error on position estimate: 100 metres | |