The original Martin, Hall & Co FA Cup trophy was presented to Alcock in 1872, but by the turn of the 20th century, the silverware was nowhere to be seen.
1895 winners Aston Villa had loaned the trophy to local boot and ball maker William Shillcock, who proudly displayed it in his Newtown Row shop. Shillcock was a cloth wholesaler by trade, and was friends with fellow draper William McGregor, Football League founder and influential Villa administrator.
On the night of 11 September, the trophy was stolen from the shop window. Though a reward was offered for its return, the trophy was never seen again. Decades later, a petty criminal named Harry Burge claimed to have stolen the cup with two accomplices, before melting down the silver to make half-crowns.
Burge incredulously suggested in the Sunday Pictorial that some of those coins had been spent at the Salutation, a pub run by an altogether different kind of Villan: 1887 and 1895 FA Cup winner Dennis Hodgetts.
The FA fined Villa the princely sum of £25 to fund a replacement, having lost the original trophy whilst it was under their care. Remarkably, another man with strong Villa connections was commissioned to produce the replica.
Like Hodgetts, Howard Vaughton had won the FA Cup in 1887, though he was forced to retire through injury one year later. The inside-left joined the family’s silversmithing business, and was a partner by 1895. His company produced a new trophy from the same mould, which was used between 1896 and 1910. Newcastle United were the last side to lift this iteration of the cup before the current design, made by Fattorini’s of Bradford, was produced in 1911.
The oldest surviving trophy is currently on display in the Match Gallery, courtesy of 1904 winners Manchester City.
