FIFTY YEARS OF THE FA VASE…1974-75 – 2023-24
THE 2023-24 FA Vase, which gets underway this weekend, marks the 50th year the competition has been been contested.
Among the 1,635 football clubs that have been involved across its history, only seven have entered to play in all 49 FA Vase previous campaigns and will do so again this season. These seven clubs make up the ‘FA Vase 50 Club'.
The FA Vase was introduced for the 1974-75 season as a replacement for the FA Amateur Cup. The line between professional and amateur player status in English football had become ever increasingly blurred and the advent of the FA Trophy at the end of the 1960s signalled the beginning of the end of the formal distinction.
Clubs would now be segregated based upon their league status and their standing in an evolving football pyramid.
The higher level non Football League clubs participated in the FA Trophy whilst the lower level clubs soldiered on in the Amateur Cup until the last Final in 1974 won by Bishop's Stortford.
The FA Challenge Vase began the following season and 220 clubs set out on to the ‘Road to Wembley'. The lure of a Wembley Final for players used to plying their trade at local village and small town clubs week-in week-out would elevate the FA Vase to hold a special place in the hearts of those that have participated or followed their local side in it.
One key positive of the competition is that any club involved has as much chance of lifting the Vase at Wembley as any other club. And this includes those clubs that start in the earliest qualifying or preliminary round. The Vase really is an egalitarian competition.
Indeed, the 1975 FA Vase Final was contested by Epsom & Ewell from the Surrey Senior League and Spartan League side Hoddesdon Town. Hoddesdon won 2-1 to become inaugural winners.
The Lilywhites are the first of the seven clubs that have entered all the FA Vase competitions ever since but, unfortunately, their run that year was as good as it got. Their best run since was to the fifth round in the 1992-93 season with their only real highlight being a 7-0 vic- tory over FC Romania in 2012-13.
Just one other of the seven ‘FA Vase 50 Club' members can say that they are former winners. For the first nine seasons of the FA Vase, Stansted FC had never ventured beyond the first round, but in the 1983-84 season it all clicked.
Victories
Starting with a 2-0 victory at Epping Town in the preliminary round, the Airportmen's Vase campaign that season ended eight wins later with a tight 3-2 victory over Stamford FC at
Wembley. Eight victories was . twice as many as the club had achieved in their first nine campaigns.
Again, the remaining FA Vase campaigns for Stansted FC have been pretty lean since their glorious day at Wembley with just one solitary fifth round appearance in 2010-11. The club's biggest Vase victory, a 5-0 win over Shillington, took place in the season before they lifted the Vase.
Only one other ‘FA Vase 50 Club' member has been involved in a Wembley Vase Final, but their appearance occurred at the new Wembley in the 2012-13 season.
Tunbridge Wells had had a pretty non-descript time in the FA Vase during their first 38 campaigns, occasionally making the fourth round, with three of those in the 1970s. Their fourth round berth in the season before they made the final meant they were exempt until the second round for that campaign.
The Wells' run to the final began with a 2-0 defeat of Wantage Town and ended with a 2-1 defeat to Spennymoor Town at Wembley. This was an era when the Northern League dominated the FA Vase with their m clubs winning eight Vas in nine years.
SUPER SEVEN
Since appearing in that final, Tunbridge Wells have only once got as far as the fifth round, in the 2021-22 season. Their biggest FA Vase win, an 8-0 thrashing of Holyport, occured in 2010//11.
For three of the remaining four other ‘50 Club' members, the fifth round is as far as they have got. New Forest side Brock-enhurst FC achieved that feat in the inaugural FA Vase season, eventually losing 4-1 to Stamford FC, and they didn't do it again until 47 years later.
Then, the Badgers exited at the hands of Littlehampton Town ater a penalty shoot-out following a 3-3 draw. The club did produce their biggest victory of the competition during that 2021-22 run, beating Bodmin Town 6-0 in the first round.
The next member of the ‘50 Club', is Holbeach United. They too have a best performance in the competition as being two separate runs to the fifth round.
Illustrious
In the 1988-89 season, they were prevented from reaching the quarter finals by a 4-2 defeat to Wisbech Town. Twenty-six years later ,their run ended at the same stage by a 3-2 home reverse to Erith & Belvedere.
The Tigers' biggest win in the Vase so far is a 5-0 home victory over Fernhill County Sports in the 2002-03 season.
Saffron Walden Town are the sixth member of the ‘ 50 Club' and the third to have a competition best run to the fifth round. The Bloods only achieved that once, way back in 1990-91. That run was ended by a 2-1 home defeat to Buckingham Town and they have just two more appearances in the fourth round to show for their efforts in the intervening years.
Even though Saffron Walden have entered the Vase every year they haven't always participated in it. The club scratched before facing Whitton United in the 1997-98 campaign, before playing Brentwood FC in the first qualifying round in 200304, and before facing Team Bury eight years later. Saffron Walden are the only one of the seven clubs not to have actually played at least one game in all 49 previous FA Vase campaigns.
Making up the septet of ‘50 Club' members is Calne Town. And despite playing in all those campaigns the Wiltshire club has never managed to yet go further than the third round. And even that they've only ever achieved once.
The club's record run came in the 2006-07 season, ended by a 4-1 home defeat to Slimbridge FC. Their best result in the Vase was also a 4-1 score-line which came in their first ever FA Vase match against Westbury United and has only been matched once since.
So, whilst Calne Town may not have an illustrious Vase campaign as Hoddesdon Town and the others, they do at least share their Lilywhites nickname with the Hertfordshire club.
The ‘50 Club' nearly had a membership of eight.
Stotfold FC, for the first time, will not be involved this season. The Eagles have achieved their first ever promotion to Step 4 and will participate in the FA Trophy instead.
