How the FA Cup Works, How It Began and Why Underdogs Rule
First played in the 1871–72 season, the world's oldest national football competition still pits part-time amateurs against the game's wealthiest giants.
The FA Cup remains football’s most democratic proving ground. Every season, hundreds of clubs across England and Wales enter an unseeded, sudden-death tournament where part-time athletes share the pitch with global superstars, and where a single mistake can eliminate the wealthiest teams in the world.[1]
First contested in the 1871–72 season, the Football Association Challenge Cup is the oldest national football competition on the planet, according to Wikipedia’s record of the tournament.[1] From its Victorian origins to its modern Wembley finals, the cup has retained a distinct framework that separates it from standard league competition: unseeded draws, open eligibility spanning deep into semi-professional tiers, and an enduring appetite for what English football calls “giant-killings”.[1]
The origins of the Challenge Cup
The tournament traces back to 20 July 1871, when Football Association secretary C. W. Alcock met committee members at the offices of The Sportsman newspaper in London, according to the tournament’s official history.[1] Alcock proposed to the FA committee that a challenge cup should be established for which all member clubs would be invited to compete.[1][2]
The motion passed, and the inaugural tournament commenced in November 1871.[1] Fifteen clubs entered, twelve took part, and after thirteen total matches across the season, Wanderers defeated the Royal Engineers 1–0 at Kennington Oval on 16 March 1872 to become the inaugural winners.[1][2] Wanderers retained the trophy the following season after receiving a bye straight to the final under the original challenge rules, a system promptly abandoned for 1873–74 to encourage broader competition.[2]
By the 1888–89 campaign, qualifying rounds were introduced to manage the growing list of entrants.[1] The tournament has since survived two world wars—pausing from 1915 to 1919 and again from 1939 to 1945—before staging its landmark 100th edition in the 1980–81 season.[1]
How the tournament format works
The FA Cup features twelve knockout rounds, followed by semi-finals and a final at Wembley Stadium.[1] There is no seeding at any stage; every fixture is determined by a random draw.[1]
Eligibility is determined by league tier. All clubs across the top four divisions of the English football system—the Premier League, Championship, League One, and League Two—qualify automatically.[1] Non-league clubs down to Level 9 are also eligible, provided they enter the FA Trophy or FA Vase and possess an approved home ground, while Level 10 clubs serve as stand-ins when vacancies arise.[1] A total of 747 clubs entered the 2026–27 competition, with the tournament record standing at 763 entrants in 2011–12.[1]
To accommodate hundreds of teams, the tournament employs a staggered entry system across two distinct phases:[1]
- The Qualifying Competition: Six regionalised rounds running from August to October, contested exclusively by non-league clubs from Levels 5 to 10.[1]
- The Competition Proper: Six national rounds beginning in November. The 32 non-league survivors meet 48 clubs from League One and League Two in the first round proper.[1]
- The Third Round: The 44 clubs from the Premier League and Championship enter the draw in January, narrowing the field toward the spring quarter-finals.[1]
Matches that ended in a tie once led to endless replays until a winner emerged—in the 1971–72 qualifying competition, Alvechurch and Oxford City required six matches before Alvechurch won the fifth replay.[1] Over decades, replays were gradually phased out. After dropping replays from the final in 1993 and the semi-finals in 1999, the FA eliminated replays from the first round proper onwards beginning in the 2024–25 season to ease fixture congestion caused by expanded European tournaments.[1][2]
Why giant-killings define the cup
While the FA Cup trophy has frequently ended up in elite hands—Arsenal hold the tournament record with 14 titles, while Manchester City won the 2026 final with a 1–0 victory over Chelsea—its global fame rests on unexpected upsets.[1]
The dynamic began early. On 6 October 1888, non-league Warwick County became the first side outside the Football League to beat a First Division club when they won 2–1 away at Stoke.[2] In 1901, Southern League side Tottenham Hotspur became the only non-league team to win the FA Cup since the Football League’s founding in 1888, defeating Sheffield United in a replay.[2]
No team from outside the top flight has lifted the trophy since 1980, when Second Division West Ham United beat Arsenal 1–0 on a Trevor Brooking header.[2] Yet lower-division teams routinely upset heavily favoured opponents. In 1989, non-league Sutton United stunned top-flight Coventry City 2–1, a feat unmatched by a non-league side until Luton Town defeated Norwich City in the 2012–13 fourth round.[2]
In the modern era, Lincoln City became the first non-league side in 103 years to reach the quarter-finals during the 2016–17 campaign, beating Premier League Burnley 1–0 along the way.[2] The sheer scale of English football’s pyramid means that whenever the draw pairs elite professionals with local community sides, the threat of an upset remains the cup’s sharpest attraction.[1]
