Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy

Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy
	The trophy awarded to champions
Organising body	Thomas Lipton
Founded	1909
Abolished	1911; 110 years ago
Region	Europe
Number of teams	4
Related competitions	Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva
Last champions	West Auckland (1911)
Most successful club(s)	West Auckland; (2 titles)

The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was an association football competition that took place twice, in Turin, Italy, in 1909 and 1911. It is regarded by some as the first World Cup.^[1]^[2]

It is predated by the Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva,^[3] which was hosted in 1908 in Turin, and the Football World Championship, which took place between 1887 and 1902. Also seen as an international competition, but with the noted lack of an England team, Lipton in partnership with the Italian royal family, wanted to go one further and make a more complete tournament. Of course the actual FIFA World Cup features international teams from around the world, but the Lipton Cup, an invitational, only featured a few club sides from Europe.

Overview[]

Italy, Germany and Switzerland sent their most prestigious club sides to the competition, but The Football Association of England refused to be associated with it and declined the offer to send a team. Not wishing to have England unrepresented in the competition, Thomas Lipton invited West Auckland FC, an amateur side from County Durham and mostly made up of coal miners, to take part. The reason why this team was selected is unknown. Some verbal tradition in West Auckland was that the FA intended to send Woolwich Arsenal but West Auckland were invited instead as they shared the same initials.^[4]

West Auckland won the tournament and returned to Italy in 1911 to defend their title. In this second competition, West Auckland beat the then amateur team Juventus 6–1 in the final, and were awarded the trophy outright. The development of football on other continents: Asia, Africa and the Americas was not very advanced and Europe was where the major football was happening.^[5]^[6]

In January 1994 the original trophy, which was being held in West Auckland Working Men's Club, was stolen. An exact replica of the original trophy was commissioned and is now held by West Auckland FC.^[2]^[6]

1909 tournament[]

Participants[]

West Auckland with the Thomas Lipton Cup won in 1909

Team
Torino XI ^{[note 1]}
Stuttgarter Sportfreunde
West Auckland
Winterthur

Notes

^ This team was formed from players of mainly clubs Juventus and Torino.

Results[]

Semi-finals[]

1909 Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy

11 April 1909^[3]

Semifinal

Stuttgarter Sportfreunde	0–2	West Auckland
		Whittington 10' Dickenson 88' (pen.)

11 April 1909^[3]

Semifinal

Torino XI	1–2	Winterthur
Berardo 13'		Lang 25', 55' (pen.)

Third place match[]

12 April 1909

Torino XI	2–1	Stuttgarter Sportfreunde
De Bernardi 35' Zuffi II 75'		Kipp 15

Final[]

12 April 1909^[3]

West Auckland	2–0	Winterthur
R. Jones 6' (pen.) J. Jones 8'