West Auckland F.C.
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| Full name | West Auckland Town Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | West |
| Founded | 1893 (as West Auckland) |
| Ground | The Wanted metal stadium (Darlington Road) |
| Capacity | 2000capacity (75seating) |
| Manager | Gary Forest |
| League | Northern League Division One |
| 2016–17 | Northern League Division One, 18th of 22 |
West Auckland Town Football Club are a football club from West Auckland, near Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England, competing in the Northern League, in the ninth tier of the English football league system. The club is most famous for being the winners of the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, one of the world's first international footballing competitions, twice, in 1909 and 1911.
The club was founded as West Auckland F.C. in 1893, and initially played in the Wear Valley League (1896–1900), South Durham Alliance (1900–05) and Mid Durham League (1905–08). In 1908 they joined the Northern League.
The Trophy was initiated by businessman and sporting enthusiast Sir Thomas Lipton, who wished to see a competition between the leading football clubs of Europe. The football associations of Italy, Germany and Switzerland duly complied, but the Football Association of England refused to nominate a club. West Auckland, a lowly amateur side of coalminers from the Northern League were entered into the competition, although it has never been entirely clear why.
One plausible explanation for West Auckland's entry was that an employee of Sir Thomas Lipton's had contacts in the Northern League and put out an appeal for a team to take the English spot. An alternative explanation, popular in the town itself, is that Lipton had wanted to send Woolwich Arsenal to the Championship – an instruction to his secretary to "contact W.A." led to West Auckland being mistakenly contacted. However, a review of the facts casts doubt on this theory; at the time Woolwich Arsenal had only just been promoted from the Second Division and were not the famous club they are today, being relatively small and unsuccessful compared to many other Football League sides. In addition, there is no documentary evidence to suggest any sort of link between Sir Thomas Lipton and Woolwich Arsenal, so it is unclear why he would have chosen them ahead of any other English team. Indeed recent research clearly shows evidence that West Auckland were the expected team.
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