| Wanderers | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Full name | Wanderers Football Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Founded | 1859 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dissolved | 1883 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | Lillie Bridge, Battersea Park, possibly others (Capacity n/a) |
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The Wanderers Football Club were an amateur football club based in Battersea, Wandsworth, London, and were one of the leading clubs in English football in the 1860s and 1870s. They are most notable for having won the first ever FA Cup final, in 1872, and the competition another four times during the rest of the 1870s.
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History
Initially formed as Forest Football Club (not to be confused with Nottingham Forest) in 1859 and based in Leytonstone, London, they were a founder member of The Football Association in 1863. They adopted the title of Wanderers a year later, after "wandering" across London to Battersea Park. The team consisted mostly of ex-public schoolboys, and was captained by Charles Alcock, who was also chairman of the FA from 1870 to 1895 and the original proponent of the FA Cup. Other members included A. G. Guillemard, the "father" of the Rugby Football Union. They are chiefly noted for winning the first-ever FA Cup final, held at the Kennington Oval, London, on March 16, 1872. They beat the Royal Engineers 1-0, the winning goal scored by Morton Betts, under the pseudonym A.H. Chequer. In all they won the cup five times in its first seven seasons, between 1872 and 1878, and even as of 2007 the club remains equal eighth in the list of all-time winners of the FA Cup. Though The Wanderers never had a permanent home ground (as their name suggests), they are known to have played at Lillie Bridge and Battersea Park. The club was eventually disbanded in 1883, by which time individual schools had set up their own clubs (such as Old Etonians and Old Carthusians). Corinthians FC, another touring side composed of amateurs and ex-public schoolboys, were founded in 1882 and can be regarded in some ways as the spiritual successor to Wanderers, although they refused to take part in competitive football and the FA Cup, unlike the Wanderers.
Notable players
Between 1872 and 1880 the club supplied fifteen England internationals, who are listed below, with the number of caps won in parentheses:
- Reginald Welch (1)
- Leonard Howell (1)
- Alexander Bonsor (2)
- William Kenyon-Slaney (1)
- Alfred Stratford (1)
- Charles Wollaston (4)
- Robert Kingsford (1)
- Francis Birley (1)
- Charles Alcock (1)
- George Heron (3)
- Frederick Green (1)
- Charles Heron (1)
- William Lindsay (1)
- John Wylie (1)
- Henry Wace (3)
Legacy
Many clubs have adopted "Wanderers" as a suffix in their name, directly or indirectly inspired by the Wanderers FC name.
- For a list of clubs with "Wanderers" in their name, see the disambiguation page at Wanderers
References
- Rob Cavallini (2005). The Wanderers F.C.: Five Times F.A. Cup Winners. Dog N Duck Publications. ISBN 0-9550496-0-1.
- 1871-72 FA Cup Final.
- History of Association Football.
