1878–79 FA Cup
association football tournament concluding in 1879
The 1878–79 Football Association Challenge Cup was the eighth staging of the FA Cup, England's oldest football tournament. Forty-three teams entered, although five of the forty-three never played a match.
The Quarter final matches between the Old Etonians and Darwen are depicted in Julian Fellowes's drama series, The English Game:
" Arthur Kinnaird is captain and star player for the Old Etonians. Their opponents in the 1879 FA Cup Quarter finals are Darwen, a working class factory team. James Walsh, the owner of Darwen FC and the associated mill decides to secretly pay two Scottish players, Fergus "Fergie" Suter and James "Jimmy" Love to join his team in a bid to secure the FA Cup (which at the time is exclusively for amateurs). The Old Etonians, who also happen to be FA Board members, decide that since extra time was not previously agreed to then the Quarter final will be replayed instead. The mill has financial issues and townsfolk pitch in to help pay for the trip. The replay is handily won by Old Etonians who focus more on shutting down Suter and Love rather than playing their own game.
The public source identifies “1878–79 FA Cup” as association football tournament concluding in 1879. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around association, football and tournament.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 9, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2397591. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1878 and 1879.
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This entry incorporates text from “1878–79 FA Cup” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.