Who won the first ever World Cup?
Ask most people and they will (correctly) answer Uruguay. But ask that question in a County Durham mining village and you may get a different answer.
First taking place in 1909, the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was an invitational tournament featuring teams from Germany, Switzerland and Italy. The FA refused to send a representative team, so West Auckland, a non-league side from the North East, were invited instead.
An urban legend suggests that tournament organisers meant to invite Woolwich Arsenal instead, but it’s more likely that they meant to ask West’s neighbours, non-league behemoths Bishop Auckland, to attend.
Regardless, West Auckland shocked the opposition in Turin, first beating Stuttgarter Sportfreunde, then seeing off Winterthur in the final.
Incredibly, West returned to Turin two years later and successfully defended the title, thumping Juventus 6-1 in the final.
The competition is sometimes referred to as the first World Cup: though this is patently untrue, it was still one of the earlier European competitions to come into existence, and West’s unlikely triumph makes for a remarkable story.
