1887 World Championship (football)

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1887 World Club Championship
Aston villa 1887.jpg
Aston Villa, winning team
EventFootball World Championship
Aston Villa Hibernian
England Scotland
3 0
Date9 April 1887
VenuePerry Barr, Birmingham
Attendance7,000
1888 →

The 1887 World Championship was an exhibition football match that took place in the city of Birmingham between the Scottish FA's Hibernian (1886–87 Scottish Cup winners) and The FA's Aston Villa (the 1886–87 FA Cup winners).

The match was billed by the Birmingham Daily Mail in their 7 April 1887 edition as a "Great International Match". Aston Villa won the match 3–0 to become association football's very first "world club champions".[1]

Overview[]

On 9 April 1887, Scottish Cup holders Hibernian, from Edinburgh, took on FA Cup winners Aston Villa in the Football World Championship at the Birmingham club's Perry Barr ground. Aston Villa won the match 3–0 to become what is believed to be the very first association football world club champions. The Birmingham Daily Mail in their 7 April 1887 edition billed the game as a de facto world championship game;[citation needed] however, the Scottish newspapers The Glasgow Herald and The Scotsman reported on it in no grander terms or greater detail than several other cross-border challenge matches of that weekend, acknowledging the participants' cup-winning status in passing.[2][3]

This is believed to have been the first "World Championship" game between English and Scottish sides, although further research is required to confirm this. In this series of matches, Sunderland and Aston Villa were the only known English winners, with both teams being powerhouses in English football in the pre 1900s era. Indeed, the National Football Museum, now based in Manchester, England, referred to both sides as forming world football's first great club rivalry.

Later in 1887, Hibernian won a friendly against 1887 FA Cup semi-finalists Preston North End that was billed as 'The Association Football Championship of the World'.[4][5][6]

Participant teams[]

Team Qualification
England Aston Villa 1886–87 FA Cup winners
Scotland Hibernian 1886–87 Scottish Cup winners

Match details[]

Aston Villa England3 – 0Scotland Hibernian
Hodgetts Goal
Brown Goal
Fagan Goal (og)		 Report
Attendance: 7,000
Aston Villa
Hibernian
GK Jimmy Warner
FB Frank Coulton
FB
HB John Burton
HB Harry Yates Substituted off
HB Frankie Dawson
FW
FW Albert Brown
FW Archie Hunter
FW Howard Vaughton
FW Dennis Hodgetts
GK John Tobin
FB James Lundie
FB Barney Fagan
HB
HB Peter McGinn
HB James McLaren
FW Patrick Lafferty
FW Willie Groves
FW James McGhee
FW George Smith
FW Philip Clark Substituted off

References[]

  • Lugton, Alan (1999). The Making of Hibernian 1. John Donald Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-85976-509-1.
  • Mackay, John (1986). The Hibees. John Donald Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-85976-144-4.
  • Birmingham Daily Mail, 7 & 9 April 1887
  1. ^ Birmingham Daily Mail, 7 & 9 April 1887
  2. ^ Association Matches in England. | Aston Villa v. Edinburgh Hibernians., The Glasgow Herald, 11 April 1887
  3. ^ Football, The Scotsman, 11 April 1887 (pages 1, 14 and 15 of scans), via London hearts Supporters Club
  4. ^ Scott Murray and Rowan Walker (2008). Day of the Match: A History of Football in 365 Days. Boxtree. ISBN 978-0-7522-2678-1. Retrieved 17 August 2010. In August 1887, Scottish Cup holders Hibernian took on FA Cup winners [sic] Preston North End in a friendly at Hibs' Hibernian Park ground. Posters appeared all over Edinburgh billing the encounter as 'The Association Football Championship of the World'. Hibernian won the match 2–1 and therefore had the right (whichever way you look at it, as nobody else had bothered to stage such an event) to call themselves the first world champions, beating Uruguay to it by 43 years.
  5. ^ Mackay 1986, p. 40
  6. ^ Lugton 1999, p. 121
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