1883 FA Cup final

The 1883 FA Cup final was an association football match between Blackburn Olympic and Old Etonians on 31 March 1883 at Kennington Oval in London. It was the 12th final of the world's oldest football competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup (commonly known as the FA Cup). Old Etonians were the holders of the Cup, having defeated Olympic's local rivals, Blackburn Rovers, in the 1882 final. Blackburn Olympic had not previously progressed beyond the first round of the competition. Both teams had been victorious in six previous rounds to reach the final.

Old Etonians took the lead in the first half with a goal from Harry Goodhart, but Alfred Matthews scored an equaliser for Blackburn and, with the scores level at the end of the regulation 90 minutes, the game went into extra time, during which Blackburn's James Costley scored and Blackburn won the match 2–1. It was the first time that a working-class team had won the competition, which had previously been won exclusively by teams of wealthy amateurs. The victory intensified a debate over professionalism in football which had been ongoing since the previous decade; following threats by teams which wished to pay their players to break away and create a new governing body, professionalism in football was legalised in 1885 and the dominance of the gentleman amateurs quickly ended.

The Football Association Challenge Cup (commonly known as the FA Cup) was the first formal competition created for the sport of association football, which had first been codified in 1863. The creation of the tournament had been proposed in 1871 by Charles W. Alcock, the secretary of the Football Association (the FA), who wrote that "it is desirable that a Challenge Cup should be established in connection with the Association, for which all clubs belonging to the Association should be invited to compete". His inspiration had been a similar competition between houses during his time as a pupil at Harrow School. The first FA Cup competition took place during the 1871–72 season and 15 clubs entered. Wanderers won the final, defeating Royal Engineers, and Alcock himself was the winning captain.

In its early seasons, the competition was dominated by clubs which drew their players from the upper classes and were based in London and the surrounding area known as the home counties, particularly clubs set up for former pupils of England's leading public schools. By the 1880s, however, teams from working-class parts of the north of the country, especially the county of Lancashire, were gaining in strength. At the time, the FA was dominated by wealthy gentlemen who saw the sport primarily as a pastime and its rules did not allow clubs to pay their players anything other than minimal expenses. Despite this, working-class clubs, particularly those based in Lancashire, had been widely suspected of making illicit payments to players since at least 1876. Such clubs were also thought to have enticed potential players to relocate from other areas, especially Scotland, by colluding with local businessmen to arrange the provision of jobs which would involve minimal work and in reality pay them primarily for playing football.

Going into the 1882–83 FA Cup, Old Etonians, the team consisting of former pupils of the prestigious Eton College, were the reigning Cup holders. The Etonians had reached the final five times in the preceding eight seasons, winning in 1879 and 1882. In the latter final, they defeated Blackburn Rovers, from the Lancashire town of Blackburn, the first club not from London or the home counties to reach the final. Rovers' local rivals Blackburn Olympic entered the competition for the first time in the 1880–81 season but lost in the first round, a performance they repeated in the following season.

Both Blackburn Olympic and Old Etonians entered the 1882–83 FA Cup at the first round stage; the competition operated on a knockout basis and there were six rounds before the final. Blackburn played against other clubs from Lancashire in each of the first four rounds. In the first round, they beat Accrington 6–3, and they defeated Lower Darwen 8–1 in the second. In the third round, they played Darwen Ramblers and scored only one goal in the first half, but dominated their opponents after half-time, scoring seven more goals without reply to win 8–0. A 2–0 victory over Church secured them a place in the quarter-finals. At this stage they faced opponents from outside Lancashire for the first time during the competition as they were paired with Druids, based in the village of Ruabon in Wales. A 4–1 victory took Blackburn into the semi-finals.

Old Etonians drew 1–1 with another Old Boys team, Old Foresters, in the first round, before beating them 3–1 in a replay two weeks later. In the second round they beat Brentwood 2–1. The Manchester Guardian reported that, although the Etonians had been victorious in the first two rounds, their performances suggested that they were unlikely to repeat their success of the previous season. Like Blackburn Olympic, the Etonians secured a high-scoring victory in the third round, defeating Rochester 7–0. They defeated Swifts 2–0 in the fourth round to reach the quarter-finals. At that stage they played Hendon and won 4–2 to secure a place in the semi-finals.

The semi-finals of the competition featured two southern Old Boys teams and two clubs from the Midlands and north of England, and the random draw kept each pair apart. Blackburn played Old Carthusians, the team for former pupils of Charterhouse School, who had won the Cup in 1881 and were seen as favourites to win and reach the final again, even by the local newspapers in Blackburn. The game was played on 17 March at a neutral venue at Whalley Range in Manchester, and was late beginning because a football had not been provided and one had to be located. Playing with the wind and sun behind them, Olympic took a 2–0 lead in the first half; despite the conditions being against them after the change of ends at half-time, Blackburn scored two more goals in the second half to win 4–0 and reach the final. On the same day, Old Etonians played Notts County at Kennington Oval in London in front of what The Standard described as "an unusually large number of spectators". Notts County took the lead in the first half but the Etonians scored an equaliser shortly after half-time. Very late in the game, Harry Goodhart scored a second goal for the Etonians and the game finished 2–1 in their favour.