This trophy was formerly the most coveted silverware for non-league sides up and down the country.
The FA Amateur Cup was a knockout competition which saw amateur teams – that is, players who were not remunerated by their club – compete for the chance to be crowned the best non-league side in England. From 1949 onwards, the showpiece was staged at Wembley, providing further incentive for teams to progress through the competition.
Typically, clubs from London and the North East dominated the competition. Clapton won it five times across a 13-year period, while Dulwich Hamlet similarly lifted the cup four times between the wars.
Their northern counterparts fared even better. Middlesbrough and Stockton won it multiple times, and Crook Town were particularly dominant in the fifties and early sixties.
However, no side came close to Bishop Auckland, who lifted the cup a staggering ten times: first in 1896, and for the final time in 1957. The Two Blues are the only side to have won it three times in a row.
With more non-league teams turning semi-professional, the competition was retired in 1974, making way for its spiritual successor, the FA Vase.
