Fulham FC — Fulham v Southampton — 6 January 2018

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Cup Tales

The Victory Cup

Words: Ian McCulloch

T

he year was 1919,

World War One had just

ended, and Europe was

desperately trying to recover from

four years of tragedy and horror on

a scale never seen before.

Regular football had been

suspended for the duration of the

war, and regional competitions

introduced - clubs in the capital

and south-east had come together

to form the London Combination.

But with so many players going

away to fight and clubs struggling

to field complete teams, guest

players were allowed to turn out

for anybody that they happened

to be in the vicinity of. In addition,

payment of players was forbidden.

The war ended on 11th

November 1918. Wasting no

time, a meeting of the London

Combination was called to

decide what to do next. Broader

issues concerning the future of

the game itself were discussed,

but in the short term it was

decided to introduce a new

knockout cup competition - the

Victory Cup - which kicked off

the following January.

The Whites didn’t enter the

tournament until March. With

a severely weakened team, they

defeated the Munitions League

3-0 at the Cottage in front of

3,000 people. Who or what

the Munitions League were is

anybody’s guess - if anyone out

there can help with that one

we’d love to hear from them. But

having blown up the Munitions

League, Fulham moved on to play

a team with even more ordnance -

away to the mighty Arsenal. And

here’s where the intrigue begins.

At the heart of it all was arch-

conspirator Henry Norris.

Norris, when chairman of

Fulham, had turned down

an invitation to move to

Stamford Bridge, baulking at

the £1,500-a-month rent. The

owners of the dog track, the Mears

Brothers, in a fit of pique formed

their own team, Chelsea, as rivals

to Fulham. Norris also successfully

‘negotiated’ Fulham from the

bottom of the Southern League

all the way into the Football

League - his piece de resistance

coming when he managed to get

the Whites promoted into the

Southern League Division One

despite them losing a play-off test

match 7-2 to Brentford.

His ‘political skills’ and

‘pecuniary persuasiveness’ were

legendary, and so sought after

that, by the time of the cup tie,

Norris had been invited to join

the board at Arsenal. Curiously,

he continued to be a director

at Fulham at the same time -

at one stage actually trying,

Highbury in 1919

Henry Norris

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