FA Cup Preview, Past Winners and Statistics

The FA Cup on OLBG

The FA Cup runs from September through to the final at Wembley in May, throughout the FA Cup, the OLBG football tipsters will be predicting which teams they think will advance to the next round on the FA Cup predictions page in addition to predicting which team will lift the FA Cup come the end of the season.

The FA Cup Blog Content

• The History of the FA Cup
• FA Cup Final Statistics
• FA Cup Final Appearances
• FA Cup Overall Statistics
• FA Cup Trends

Clubs from the ninth and tenth tiers of English football will start their quest to make it to the first round of the cup proper in the extra-preliminary rounds of qualifying, the eighth-tier teams come in for the preliminary rounds. The first round of qualifying then starts for those who have made it through along with the introduction of the seventh-tier sides. The second round of qualifying sees the sixth-tier teams enter, those who win advance to the third round of qualifying and then in the final round, the fourth round of qualifying, the National League teams enter the competition.

Qualifying Competition

Once qualifying is complete, we move on to the proper FA Cup first round, where non-league teams will get their chance of a giant-killing! For the first round, we have all the teams who have qualified entered in the draw as well as the League One and League Two sides, that is a total of eighty teams competing in forty matches, the forty teams who advance will then make up the twenty matches in round two.

Round three is when the 'Big Boys' enter the competition, not only will we see the Championship clubs entered into the draw but also the Premier League teams and the lower league and non-league clubs who have made it this far dream of a giant-killing and a payday which could benefit the club if they can draw one of the top teams, there will be a total of sixty-four teams in round three producing thirty-two matches.

With all the teams now entered into the competition, it's an all-out battle for a place at Wembley in the final with clubs needing to win five games to make it there from the third round.

Competition Proper

2023-24 FA Cup Draw

The History of the FA Cup

First played during the 1871-72 English football season, the FA Cup otherwise known as The Football Association Challenge Cup is the oldest national football competition in the world and is currently sponsored by Emirates.

The first-ever FA Cup consisted of just fifteen teams, Wanderers F.C. from Upper Norwood beat Royal Engineers A.F.C. of Chatham 1-0 at the Kennington Oval with Morton Betts scoring the only goal of the game after fifteen minutes.

After the First World War, the FA Cup returned in 1919 and in 1923 the final, for the first time was held at the then newly built Wembley Stadium, the first-ever final held there saw Bolton Wanderers beat West Ham 2-0 with goals from David Jack and Jack Smith.

Since that final, Wembley has been the permanent home of the FA Cup final except for 1970 when the replay of the final was played at Old Trafford and also between 2001-06 when the 'New' Wembley was being built. During those years the final was moved to Cardiff and was played and the Millennium Stadium, also, since 2000, the semi-finals have been played at Wembley Stadium except for the years when the redevelopment of Wembley was taking place.

The now traditional 'Abide with Me' which is sung before the FA Cup final, was first sung at the 1927 final. The cup had a break between 1939 & 1946 due to the Second World War with the 1981 final marking the 100th final of the cup.

The FA Cup has been sponsored by plenty since 1994, the first to sponsor the cup was Littlewoods, they were replaced in 1998 by AXA, and between 2002-05 there was no sponsor until E.ON took up sponsorship for four years. Budweiser sponsored the cup for three years between 2011-14 and since 2015 the current sponsors have been Emirates.

• 1871–94 The FA Cup
• 1994–98 The FA Cup sponsored by Littlewoods
• 1998–99 The AXA sponsored FA Cup
• 1999-02 The FA Cup sponsored by AXA
• 2002–06 The FA Cup
• 2006–11 The FA Cup sponsored by E.ON
• 2011–14 The FA Cup with Budweiser
• 2014–15 The FA Cup
• 2015+ The Emirates FA Cup

FA Cup Final Statistics

The 2025 final of the FA Cup will be the 144th in the history of the competition, Manchester United have made the most final appearances, with them reaching the last two finals they have now featured in 22 moving them one clear of Arsenal on 21. It is Arsenal who are edging it in terms of the number of FA Cup wins, they have lifted the trophy fourteen times with the last win coming in 2020 whilst Manchester United are one behind on thirteen, they last won it in 2023.

• Arsenal (14 Wins)
• Manchester United (13 Wins)
• Chelsea (8 Wins)
• Tottenham (8 Wins)
• Liverpool (8 Wins)
• Aston Villa (7 Wins)
• Manchester City (7 Wins)

You have to go back to when the cup was first introduced to find the best winning streaks, both Wanderers (1876, 77 & 78) and Blackburn Rovers (1884, 85 & 86) won the FA Cup for three consecutive seasons. Since 1990 only two clubs have managed back-to-back wins in the cup, Arsenal have won the cup back-to-back three times in that period with wins in 1993-94, 2002-03 and 2014-15 whilst Chelsea won the cup in both 2009 & 2010.

Last Ten English FA Cup Winners

The unfortunate record for most defeats in the FA Cup final is held by Manchester United who after their loss in 2023 have been runners-up nine times, one more than both Chelsea and Everton.

Manchester City's 6-0 win over Watford in 2019 made it the joint-biggest win in the final, equalling the 6-0 win Bury had over Derby in the 1903 final. The highest number of goals in a final stands at seven which was achieved twice, Blackburn beat Sheffield Wednesday 6-1 in 1890 and Blackpool beat Bolton 4-3 in 1953.

The most successful manager is Arsene Wenger who won the FA Cup seven times with Arsenal, three of those came with Ashley Cole in the team, he also went on to win four times with Chelsea making him the most successful player having picked up seven winners medals. Arthur Kinnaird made the most final appearances with a total of nine games between 1872 & 1883.

There have only ever been three players to score a hat-trick in the final, Billy Townley for Blackburn in 1890, James Logan for Notts County in 1894 and Stan Mortensen for Blackpool in 1953. Ian Rush (Liverpool) is the all-time leading goalscorer in finals with a total of five goals scored in three finals whilst Didier Drogba holds the record for most finals scored in having scored in the 2007, 2009, 2010 & 2012 finals.

Norman Whiteside holds the record for the youngest player to score in a final, he was 18 years and 19 days old when scoring for Manchester United in their 4-0 win over Brighton in the 1983 final replay. The youngest player to make an appearance in the final is Curis Weston, he was 17 years and 119 days old when playing for Millwall in the 2004 final, he came on as an 89th-minute substitute in Millwall's 3-0 defeat to Manchester United. Billy Hampson's appearance at the age of 41 years and 257 days in the 1924 final for Newcastle when beating Aston Villa 2-0 makes him the oldest player to appear in a final.

FA Cup Final Appearances

FA Cup Overall Statistics

In October of 1887, Preston North End welcomed Hyde in the FA Cup first round in what would result in the current biggest win in the cup, Preston ended up winning the game 26-0. The biggest away win stands at 14-0 when Nottingham Forest went to Clapton in the first round in 1891.

During the 2011-12 FA Cup, there was a total of 763 teams competing in the FA Cup, which is the record number of teams in a single season to take part in the cup. The match between Tunbridge Wells and Littlehampton Town in 2005 in the preliminary rounds holds the record for the longest penalty shootout with each team taking twenty penalties, Tunbridge Wells went on to win 16-15.

The fastest ever FA Cup goal was scored in an incredible four seconds when Gareth Morris put Ashton United ahead against Skelmersdale United in 2001 whilst the quickest ever hat-trick was scored by Andy Locke scored for Nantwich Town against Droylsden in 1995 when completing a hat-trick in two minutes and twenty seconds.

Harry Cursham is the leading all-time FA Cup goalscorer having scored an incredible forty-nine goals in the competition, they were all scored in twelve years from 1877 to 89. For a single season, Jimmy Ross leads the charts with a total of nineteen goals for Preston in the 1887-88 season, seven of those came in the already mentioned 26-0 victory. Ted MacDougall holds the record for most goals in a single match when he scored nine of Bournemouth's eleven goals against Margate in 1971.

At just 15 years and 88 days old, Andy Awford is the youngest player to ever play in an FA Cup match, this was in 1987 for Worcester, the youngest ever scorer goes to Finn Smith who was just 16 years and 1 day old when scoring for Newport FC in 2022. That goal came in the preliminary round, the youngest player to score in the actual rounds (not qualifying) was George Williams for MK Dons in 2011 who was 16 years and 66 days old.

FA Cup Trends

Here you can find the results since the 2014-15 season for each round of the cup, it's no surprise that the home sides have the better win ratios but as the rounds go on the away teams certainly start performing much better, in fact, in the fourth round onwards the away team has won more games than the home team.

The numbers for favourites seem to get better the deeper the tournament goes, for first-round matches, favourites only have a 52% win rate (253-490) with the underdogs winning 23% of those matches (112-490). The second-round matches are similar, the favourites with a 53% strike rate but there have been more draws as the underdogs have only won 21% of the matches. It then starts to climb, with a 56% win rate in the third round, 53% for fourth-round matches, 68% for fifth-round matches and 72% for quarter-finals!

So as you can see, the deeper the competition goes, the more reliable the favourites tend to get although the semi-final and final do not follow suit with 40% of favourites winning in the semi-finals and 40% in the final. Here is the full list of favourite winning records up to the quarter-finals:

• 52% Favourites Won (First Round)
• 53% Favourites Won (Second Round)
• 56% Favourites Won (Third Round)
• 53% Favourites Won (Fourth Round)
• 68% Favourites Won (Fifth Round)
• 72% Favourites Won (Quarter-Final)

When it comes to correct scores, nine times out of ten when you look at a particular league or cup, you would expect a 1-0 home win to be one of the most popular outcomes and following suit is the FA Cup with the second most popular correct score being a 1-0 home win which has occurred in 134 of the matches. However, the most popular outcome is a 1-1 draw which has occurred in 149 matches, these scores are ninety-minute scores only and do not include any extra time.

Here are the top 10 most popular outcomes in the FA Cup:

• 1-1 (149 times)
• 1-0 (134 times)
• 0-1 (115 times)
• 1-2 (107 times)
• 2-0 (106 times)
• 2-1 (102 times)
• 0-0 (102 times)
• 2-2 (81 times)
• 0-2 (75 times)
• 3-1 (56 times)

When it comes to the Both Teams To Score (BTTS) market then there is not a great deal between the two outcomes, Yes has occurred in 51% of the matches (754) compared to No which has occurred in 49% of the matches (711).

The Total Goals market is a bit more split with 54% of the games (784) ending with three or more goals whilst 46% of the games (681) ending with under three goals, which is over a 100-game difference.

If you are not familiar with any of the types of bets mentioned on this page, then we have a handy betting guide that will explain the different types of bets available on football as well as horse racing and if you are new to in-play or in-running betting then be sure to head over to our betting guide for in-running betting.

How the 2022-23 FA Cup was Won!