The History of the Wigan Cup Competition.
The Wigan Cup Competition is one of the oldest surviving Cup Competitions in Lancashire if not in the United Kingdom being established in 1885. I have had the pleasure of being the competition secretary for over twenty years and my colleague, and our previous competition Chairman, Steve Harrison, was secretary before me. Both Steve and I had the pleasure of refereeing in the competition for many years and both of us have had the honour or refereeing the final of the competition as have our other committee members, Alan Greenhalgh (Assistant Secretary) and Jim Picton (Press Officer). Our only other committee member at this time is my wife Ruth Hudson.
We are a non-profit making football (soccer) competition who continue to operative with the kind sponsorship of Spencer Hayes Insurance and latterly by Travel Counsellors with myself and you will find our details on the sponsors page and links to our businesses. My thanks to Paul Bentley from Spencer Hayes Insurance for their continued sponsorship.
The beginning of the competition on the 21st May 1885.
I write this introduction in December 2014 just a few days before Christmas. We were fortunate enough to be able to obtain details of the beginnings of the competition from local newspapers. Below is an extract from ‘The History of the Wigan Cup Competition’ written by Allan Veall, Steve Harrison and myself. Sadly, Allan is no longer with us and we will always be indebted to him for him research into the early history of the competition and thus he writes:-
‘And so on either the twenty first or twenty eighth of May 1885, on a Thursday evening, at the home of Mr. Mawdesley, the Fleece Hotel, THE WIGAN CUP COMPETITION WAS BORN.’ This extract was from the ‘Wigan Examiner’, a local newspaper sourced by Allan Veall. He writes further:-
‘It would probably be correct to say that the date would have been the 21st May 1885.’
The competition, of late and certainly since Steve and I became its custodians, along with a small committee, it has been in a format whereby the opening rounds have been played in August and September each year and the quarter, semi and final ties played in April and May each year. The reason for this format is that the competition entry is by invitation only to local amateur football clubs who normally play their weekly football in other local competitions in the Wigan, Warrington and St Helens areas of Lancashire and Merseyside. The reason for this restriction is that all of our games are played in an evening and we are restricted the Spring and Summer for competition dates. We are then, in many respects, and arguably, a unique competition that restrict entry to thirty-two teams because of the nature and format of the competition itself.
There is a much more detailed history of the competition in ‘The history of the Wigan Cup Competition’ which can be downloaded from www.Lulu.com for a nominal charge. If you want further information about us please email Bill Hudson. Finally, if you have any information about the competition, any photographs you think we could use or any comments, I would be pleased to receive these. I am currently updating the history of the competition by adding the winners and runners up of the competition since 1885 and this page is currently under construction as of June 2023.
A New Era Begins.
The innauguration of the Women’s Competition. At the AGM on Tuesday the 27th June 2023, the possibility of holding a Women’s competition was mooted. At the first meeting of the new season in 2023/24 the full committee agreed that the competition would endeavour to hold a Women’s competition in the second half of the season from April 2024 subject to sufficient teams being recruited.
So where did this idea originate?
In April of 2023 Bill Hudson our President mooted the idea with a number of committee members. It was, at first, thought perhaps a bit farcical but the germination of the idea has blossomed since. The original concept was that the competition would have to grow and survive, or it would become defunct after covid and a competition not being held sice 2019. The competition in 2019 was left in abayance after it’s first halt in September of 2019. Upon resurecting the competition once again and in effect completing the 2019 season in 2023 because of covid, the competitions quarter,semi final,and final ties were help with Ashton Town being the untimate winners of the competition in 2023.
It was felt by some people that the competition at this stage might become defunct especially due to the fact that the Wigan Amateur League, from which a number of our teams were recruited, was itself struugling to possibly survive. Indeed Bill Hudson reports that he mentioned the idea of a Women’s competition to it’s them secretary, Dave Orrell, to see if this idea might indeed help them. Subsequent conversations during April and May 2023 reported negative remarks from the WAL and so Bill Hudson decided to ask the Wigan Cup competiton if indeed it might be a way of both increasing the size of the Wigan Cup competition and introducing a women’s football competition to the area.
So what happened next? Bill further discussed his ideas with the former secretary, Bob Kynaston and subsequently with the new secretary Dave Bradshaw, both who were clearly in facour of this idea.
Bill had already mentioned the sponsorship of such a competition to Paul Bentley from the Spencer Hayes Group, our current sponsors and he was encouraged by Paul to seek costings and ideas on how we might progress with the idea of a Women’s competition. But that is not all!!!
At the same time Bil, along with new chairman, Alan Greenhalgh, was endeavouring to ascertain the whereabout of one of our trophies, the Farrimond Trophy, which had previously been thought ‘lost’ after having last been presented a number of yeras ago. It was feltt that the memory of Jim Farrimond should be preserved and his trophy once again utilised if indeed we could find this trophy last presented in 1999.
Alan Greenhalgh contacted members of Norman Hicksons family and on the off chance ascertained that Normans son had purchased his original house and he found the Farrimond Trophy in the garage and ina very poor condition, it had not seen the light of day since 1999. We are currenly having this cleaned, and if in asatisfactory condition this will in effect become The Wigan Cup Women’s Competition Trophy, we think a splendid idea. If not. then a new trophy will beprovided by our President and his wife, Ruth Hudson for the competition. They have already identified a suitable trophy for such use.
With kind regards.