**Palace’s line-up that day read:** J. Turner (GK) D. Allport (C), A. Morten, J. Cockerell, A.J. Heath, W. Bouch, C.E. Smith, F.B. Soden, H. Daukes, W.C. Foster, T.F. Spreckley.
In the second round, Crystal Palace beat Maidenhead United 3-0 at the Crystal Palace but then went on to play another 0-0 draw against the Wanderers in the third round.
Again, both teams were allowed to go through to the semi-final where Palace would play the Royal Engineers, or ‘the Sappers’, as they were known. In the interim period the FA appointed a sub-committee comprising Alcock, Palace’s Douglas Allport and Upton Park’s Alfred Stair “to select and purchase the new Challenge Cup”.
In the two semi-finals, both played on Surrey’s cricket ground at the Oval, Queen’s Park and Wanderers and Crystal Palace and the Engineers both played out further 0-0 draws. Queen’s Park could afford neither the time nor the money to come back to London again, so Wanderers were given a pass into the final.
But what to about Crystal Palace and the Royal Engineers? This time both teams could not go through to the next round because the next was the last - the final - so the FA ruled that their semi-final would have to be replayed, making it the first-ever FA Cup replay.
In the replay, Palace could not call on all their star payers and lost 3-0, with the Sappers playing a very physical game. Henry Renny-Tailyour, the only player to have ever been capped in both Association and Rugby Football for England, scored two of the Engineers’ goals.
The final was held a week later at the Oval, with the Engineers favourites to win. But the Wanderers fielded a very strong side and took a 1-0 lead through Morton Peto Betts, who usually played for Harrow Chequers, “by some of the most splendid play ever witnessed”.
The Wanderers managed to hold their 1-0 lead, no doubt helped by an injury to one of the Engineers’ best players who “had the misfortune to fracture his collar-bone very shortly after the commencement of play”.
They ran out winners of the first FA Cup, the first and oldest national football competition in the world – one which Crystal Palace were instrumental in founding.
Who knew, back then, that just the 154 years later, Palace would have their own day lifting the trophy?
_With continued thanks to Peter Manning._