as was common at the time, both teams focused mainly on attack rather than defence, the engineers lining up with seven forwards and wanderers with eight. wanderers forward morton betts played under the pseudonym "a. h. chequer", derived from his membership of the harrow chequers club. some sources state that he played under an assumed name to disguise the fact that he was cup-tied, having been a registered player of the chequers club at the start of the competition and therefore ineligible to play for another club in that season's cup. this, however, is unlikely to be true, as in the early amateur era of football players were not required to be formally registered with clubs. cuthbert ottaway, a future captain of the england national team, played for two different clubs in consecutive rounds of the 1871–72 fa cup without incident.
wanderers captain c. w. alcock won the coin toss and chose to defend the harleyford road end of the ground, meaning that the engineers, who were considered the favourites at the start of play, initially had the sun and wind in their faces. early in the game, edmund creswell of the royal engineers suffered a broken collar bone in a melee. he refused to leave the pitch but due to his injury was forced to spend the remainder of the match as a "passenger" on the wing. wanderers' tactics centred on the dribbling skills of individual players, while the engineers favoured passing the ball, a style then known as the "combination game" and considered innovative, of which they were leading exponents.
wanderers took the lead fifteen minutes into the game when betts opened the scoring from an acute angle after robert vidal's long dribble. under the rules in use at the time, the teams changed ends after each goal, but the engineers were unable to take advantage of the fact that the sun and wind were now behind them, and the wanderers players remained dominant. after twenty minutes alcock put the ball past the engineers' goalkeeper, william merriman, but the goal was disallowed because charles wollaston had handled the ball. wanderers continued to exert further pressure on the engineers' goal and only merriman's skill was able to prevent them from increasing their lead. one newspaper later described his performance as "perfect". despite a late rally from the engineers, wanderers were able to hold on to their lead and the game ended in a 1–0 victory. newspaper the field called the final "the fastest and hardest match that has ever been seen at the oval" and said that the wanderers displayed "some of the best play, individually and collectively, that has ever been shown in an association game".
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