Charles William Alcock

“ Of the winners in the middle ages of the cup, though comparisons are proverbially odious, the Preston North End team of 1889 stand out perhaps most conspicuously by reason of their all-round football. Like Aston Villa eight winters later, they won the League Championship, then just instituted, without losing a match, in 1889, and also the Football Association Cup without having a goal scored against them. ”

“ The evils which are supposed to follow in the train of Cup competitions, according to those who view them with disfavour, had they been actual, would indeed have long since produced the abolition instead of the increase of Cups all over the kingdom. As a matter of fact, though, the dangers of which these good people prate are more visionary than real; at least, they have not as yet assumed a tangible shape. The opponents of this class of football call to mind Hamlet's familiar expression, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." ”

“ The fear of inordinate betting, which it was predicted would inevitably follow the establishment of such competitions, has, as far as a lengthy and intimate knowledge of the working of one of the most important of them gives any weight, not by any means been realized. Nor has there been shown to have been any reason for the assumption that participation in a Cup competition would tend ipso facto to deaden the sensibilities or susceptibilities of either the managers of clubs or the players. ”

“ Incidental reference to Preston North End's double first in 1889 recalls the formation of the Football League, the creation of a life long worker in Association football, Mr. W. McGregor, early that season. What an important part the League system has played in the economy of modern football can hardly be fully discussed in what is primarily a practical treatise on the game. It certainly came originally to supply a general and obvious want in the shape of a competition of continuous interest, and not like the F. A. Cup, with a glorious uncertainty to all the clubs concerned. ”

“ Their contention is, in the main, that Cup competitions give rise to an excessive rivalry. According to their notions the stimulus they give is not conducive to the real interests of the game. On the contrary, the desire to secure possession of, or even to gain a.prominent place in the struggle for, the Cup, they impute, introduces an unhealthy feeling, which not only tempts the clubs to make the well-being of the game subservient to their own particular interests, but tends to lower the general standard of morality among those who compete. ”

“ It is something more than a coincidence, too, that the Rugby game is nowhere more popular than in the Midlands, one of the few districts where Rugby rules are predominant in which a Cup competition has been carried on with any energy. ”

“ Still, the Sheffield players were not easily persuaded to yield the few points in which their game differed from that of the central and administrative body of Association football. It was not, in fact, till the year 1876 that the rules of the Sheffield Association were brought into complete agreement with those of the original foundation, and the last obstacle in the way of a universal code for the regulation of Association players was removed. ”

“ That Cups give rise to more than ordinary interest is a practical truth of which those who assisted in the institution of the original trophy have had abundant and increasing evidence year after year. ”

“ To have graduated at one of the leading schools or at one of the two great Universities was an essential qualification for membership, though the rules were subsequently relaxed so as to admit of the introduction of a limited number of outsiders. ”