Trophy Article Series: NWCFL First Division Cup Winners Trophy
Wed 4th September 2019 | General | By Stewart Taylor
This splendid trophy was made by Vaughton and Sons, Silversmiths, of Birmingham in 1932 and transferred to the North West Counties Football League on the formation of the League in 1982.
There are a couple of notable features readily visible on the trophy. The first of these is the three wheatsheaves emblem representing the County of Cheshire and that informs us that the trophy came to the NWCFL courtesy of the Cheshire County League.
The other is the inscription which refers to the name of the trophy as the Edward Case Cup and therein lies a fascinating story. But before we look in a bit of detail into Edward Case, let’s go back to Vaughton and Sons.
The company was founded as P.Vaughton in 1819 in the jewellery quarter of Birmingham. At that time, the company was listed as a “Buttonmaker, Medallist and Mint” so no obvious link there to trophies in general or, specifically, football trophies – no great surprise at that latter bit as organised football was still some decades away when the company was formed. However, all that was to change as Howard Vaughton, grandson of the company founder Philip Vaughton, was a footballer with both Aston Villa and England. Something of an all-round sportsman was Howard as he also excelled at cricket, hockey, cycle racing and swimming.
Howard has a place in the goalscorer’s hall of fame to this day as his five goals for England in an international match against Ireland in 1882 remains the joint highest number of goals by one player in an England international match. Some of us will remember Malcolm MacDonald achieving the same feat for England against Cyprus in 1975 but I think many would be hard-pressed to name the other two – see foot of article for the answer to this one.
In 1895 Aston Villa won the FA Cup by defeating local rivals West Bromwich Albion in the final played at Crystal Palace. Howard Vaughton does not appear on the team sheet for this match, having retired due to injury a few years earlier, but he may well have had some involvement with the club at that time. The relevance of this is that the FA Cup Trophy was stolen whilst being displayed by Aston Villa in a shop window and never recovered. The FA insisted that Aston Villa replace the trophy and it may come as no surprise to hear that they contracted Vaughton and Sons to do exactly that. This replacement cup was used until 1910 when it was presented to Lord Kinnaird and replaced with a new trophy made by Fattorini’s of Bradford.
Vaughton and Sons are still active and specialise more in medal making. The company has supplied medals to the Football League for over 100 years and also supplies the Premier League winners medals.
As a small aside, students of the history of the beautiful game may like to look up Lord (Arthur) Kinnaird who was a hugely significant figure in the development of football from the final quarter of the 19th century and into the 20th.
But back to Edward Case. When the Cheshire County League was founded in 1919, Edward Case of West Kirby was elected as President at a meeting held in the Albion Hotel in Manchester on June 18th of that year. Edward remained as President until his death in 1952. Edward was a well known local figure. He was a district councillor. Despite his humble origins (his father was a shoemaker and he an insurance agent), he is still remembered by older West Kirby residents as being referred to as “Sir Edward”.
During his long tenure as President, Edward was instrumental in driving the quality of the League forward in many aspects both on and off the field. The League became one of, if not the, strongest Leagues outside the Football League with some excellent teams participating. We can cite the example of Altrincham FC who, as Champions of the Cheshire County League, were denied promotion to the Football League on at least two occasions due to the iniquitous system of re-election which was in place at the time.
This trophy, commissioned in 1932, was awarded to the highest placed side that were not a reserve side from a Football League Club. On being transferred to the NWCFL in 1982, the trophy was used as the Third Division Championship Trophy with the first winners being Colne Dynamoes. The trophy was retired when the Third Division ceased to exist but was brought back into action for its current use – in truth, it is too good a trophy not to use.
The current holders of the trophy are Sandbach United who defeated Avro in an incident-packed match played at Vauxhall Motors on May 6th 2019. Previous winners when in the hands of the Cheshire County League include a veritable who’s who of the finest non-league sides in the area showing just how strong the competition was in those days.
And those other goalscorers referred to above:-
Steve Bloomer (Derby County) v. Wales – 1896
Willie Hall (Tottenham Hotspur) v. Ireland - 1938
Trophy Article Series: NWCFL First Division Cup Winners Trophy
Wed 4th September 2019 | General
By Stewart Taylor
This splendid trophy was made by Vaughton and Sons, Silversmiths, of Birmingham in 1932 and transferred to the North West Counties Football League on the formation of the League in 1982.
There are a couple of notable features readily visible on the trophy. The first of these is the three wheatsheaves emblem representing the County of Cheshire and that informs us that the trophy came to the NWCFL courtesy of the Cheshire County League.
The other is the inscription which refers to the name of the trophy as the Edward Case Cup and therein lies a fascinating story. But before we look in a bit of detail into Edward Case, let’s go back to Vaughton and Sons.
The company was founded as P.Vaughton in 1819 in the jewellery quarter of Birmingham. At that time, the company was listed as a “Buttonmaker, Medallist and Mint” so no obvious link there to trophies in general or, specifically, football trophies – no great surprise at that latter bit as organised football was still some decades away when the company was formed. However, all that was to change as Howard Vaughton, grandson of the company founder Philip Vaughton, was a footballer with both Aston Villa and England. Something of an all-round sportsman was Howard as he also excelled at cricket, hockey, cycle racing and swimming.
Howard has a place in the goalscorer’s hall of fame to this day as his five goals for England in an international match against Ireland in 1882 remains the joint highest number of goals by one player in an England international match. Some of us will remember Malcolm MacDonald achieving the same feat for England against Cyprus in 1975 but I think many would be hard-pressed to name the other two – see foot of article for the answer to this one.
In 1895 Aston Villa won the FA Cup by defeating local rivals West Bromwich Albion in the final played at Crystal Palace. Howard Vaughton does not appear on the team sheet for this match, having retired due to injury a few years earlier, but he may well have had some involvement with the club at that time. The relevance of this is that the FA Cup Trophy was stolen whilst being displayed by Aston Villa in a shop window and never recovered. The FA insisted that Aston Villa replace the trophy and it may come as no surprise to hear that they contracted Vaughton and Sons to do exactly that. This replacement cup was used until 1910 when it was presented to Lord Kinnaird and replaced with a new trophy made by Fattorini’s of Bradford.
Vaughton and Sons are still active and specialise more in medal making. The company has supplied medals to the Football League for over 100 years and also supplies the Premier League winners medals.
As a small aside, students of the history of the beautiful game may like to look up Lord (Arthur) Kinnaird who was a hugely significant figure in the development of football from the final quarter of the 19th century and into the 20th.
But back to Edward Case. When the Cheshire County League was founded in 1919, Edward Case of West Kirby was elected as President at a meeting held in the Albion Hotel in Manchester on June 18th of that year. Edward remained as President until his death in 1952. Edward was a well known local figure. He was a district councillor. Despite his humble origins (his father was a shoemaker and he an insurance agent), he is still remembered by older West Kirby residents as being referred to as “Sir Edward”.
During his long tenure as President, Edward was instrumental in driving the quality of the League forward in many aspects both on and off the field. The League became one of, if not the, strongest Leagues outside the Football League with some excellent teams participating. We can cite the example of Altrincham FC who, as Champions of the Cheshire County League, were denied promotion to the Football League on at least two occasions due to the iniquitous system of re-election which was in place at the time.
This trophy, commissioned in 1932, was awarded to the highest placed side that were not a reserve side from a Football League Club. On being transferred to the NWCFL in 1982, the trophy was used as the Third Division Championship Trophy with the first winners being Colne Dynamoes. The trophy was retired when the Third Division ceased to exist but was brought back into action for its current use – in truth, it is too good a trophy not to use.
The current holders of the trophy are Sandbach United who defeated Avro in an incident-packed match played at Vauxhall Motors on May 6th 2019. Previous winners when in the hands of the Cheshire County League include a veritable who’s who of the finest non-league sides in the area showing just how strong the competition was in those days.
And those other goalscorers referred to above:-
Steve Bloomer (Derby County) v. Wales – 1896
Willie Hall (Tottenham Hotspur) v. Ireland - 1938
