On 16 March 1872, The Wanderes FC beat the Royal Engineers by a goal to nil at Kennington Oval to win the newly inaugurated FA Challenge Cup competition.  A crowd of 2,000 spectators saw C.W.Alcock, captain of the victorious team, presented with the trophy, a silver cup scarcely 18 inches high.  There had been 15 entrants, eight of them from London, with no northern clubs, their ficture cards for the season having already been completed. Donington School from Lincolnshire and Queen's Park of Glasgow did, however, enter the competition.  Queen's Park met the Wanderers in the semi-finals, having travelled to London from Glasgow with the help of public subsciption. After a hard-fought goalless draw, Queen's Park could not afford to stay in London for a reply so had to scratch. The Royal Engineers were favourites to win the final, but the Wanderers were a strong side composed of the best players to have graduated from the public schools and universities.  Their star player, the Rev, R.W.S Vidal was famed as the "Prince of Dribblers". and it was he who passed to M.P. Betts who scored the only goal of the game. Contemporary accounts state that the winner was scored by A.H. Chequer, but this was Betts who used a pseudonym because he had begun the tournament as a Harrow Chequer player. They scratched without playing and Betts surfaced again wearing the orange, violet and black of the Wanderers. According to the Derbyshire Courier ''The Engineers were by no means so formidable as had been anticipated, and their backs not at all equal to their opponents. Nor did they play so well together; and in fact, they were overmatched throughout.' It was a bad day for the Royal Engineers, whose Lieutenant Gresswell broke his collar-bone ten minutes into the game and bravely played on until the end. Victory secured the Wanderers the privilege of an automatic spot in the following year's final and choice of venue.