1940 Chatham Cup
| Dates | 24 August 1940 | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Championship venue | Basin Reserve, Wellington | ||
| Champions | Waterside (Wellington) (3rd title) | ||
| Runners-up | Mosgiel | ||
| Championship match score | 6 – 2 | ||
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The 1940 Chatham Cup was the 17th annual nationwide knockout football competition in New Zealand, and the last such competition before the suspension of the Chatham Cup due to World War II. The competition resumed in 1945 as hostilities were drawing to a close.
The competition was run on a regional basis, with regional associations each holding separate qualifying rounds. Teams taking part in the final rounds are known to have included Ponsonby, Waterside (Wellington), Hamilton Wanderers, Nomads (Christchurch), and Mosgiel.
Waterside successfully defended the trophy for a second consecutive time, becoming the first team to win the trophy three times. The final also saw the first re-match since 1925, with the two teams having previously met in the 1938 final. Eight Waterside players (Sid Ward, Bob Bolton, Fred Hazel, Colin McCarthy, Tom Walker, Sonny Ward, Alf Longbottom, and Toby Janes) played in all three finals, and eight Mosgiel players played in both the 1938 and 1940 finals. Bolton, Janes, and Walker were each to gain a fourth final win in 1947.
Sonny Ward scored in the third consecutive final, taking his tally of cup final goals to four, and McCarthy added a hat-trick to his two goals in the previous season's final to take his overall total to a then-record five. The final was played in front of a record crowd of 8,000 spectators. Contemporary reports say that the final was the most one-sided in the cup's history up to that time. Despiute this, Mosgiel took an early lead with a second-minute goal from A. Sharpe. The equaliser came from Sonny Ward after 25 minutes, and from that point it became one-way traffic. Walker put Waterside into the lead and McCarthy added another only two minutes later. McCarthy added a further goal to give the Wharfies a 3-1 half-time lead. In the second half McCarthy added his third and then crossed the ball from a corner which Longbottom headed in for Waterside's sixth. Mosgiel gained a late consolation goal through W. Rogers.
The aggregate of eight final goals remains a record, though it has been eqaualled on five occasions, in 1955, 1958, 1960, 1989, and in the first final of 1972 (a year in which the final required two replays).
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