1889–90 FA Cup
association football tournament concluding in 1890
The 1889–90 FA Cup was the 19th season of the world's oldest football knockout competition, the Football Association Challenge Cup, or the FA Cup. Blackburn Rovers won the competition for the fourth time, beating The Wednesday 6–1 in the final at Kennington Oval. The match total of seven goals remains the record (equalled in the 1953 final) for the highest number of goals scored in an FA Cup final. Blackburn's own score of six goals remains the record (equalled by Bury in 1903 and by Manchester City in 2019) for the most by one team in an FA Cup final.
Qualifying rounds
This season's competition saw all Football League clubs granted exemption through to the first round proper. The 10 non-League clubs progressing from the qualifying rounds were Chester, South Shore, Sheffield United, Derby Midland, Lincoln City, Distillery, Newcastle West End, Small Heath, Swifts and Clapton. South Shore and Small Heath had come through the qualifying rounds of the previous season's competition but, of the others, only Sheffield United was featuring at this stage for the first time. Newcastle West End was appearing in the first round for the last time before folding and being absorbed into Newcastle United in 1892.
Distillery's heavy loss to Bolton Wanderers at Pike's Lane also marked the final appearance by an Irish team in the FA Cup competition proper.
In order to bring the number of teams up to 32, a further 10 non-League clubs were given byes to the first round.
The public source identifies “1889–90 FA Cup” as association football tournament concluding in 1890. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around association, football and tournament.
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Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2610346. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1889, 1953, 1903 and 2019.
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This entry incorporates text from “1889–90 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.