Never beaten by a non- league club

F

Fofacut

Member
Am I right in thinking Boro have never been knocked out of the FA Cup by a non league club and if so how many other clubs have that record?
 
Do you mean in it's entire history or from a certain point in a modern era? I mean, the FA Cup started in 1871-72, but the Football League was only formed in 1888, 16 years later.

I thought we ranked something like 18th-20th in terms of clubs with most time in the top flight since the War, so I expect most of the teams who are higher in that table to not have been knocked out by non league opposition, with only a small number of notable exceptions, post war. We've nearly always entered the FA Cup at the 3rd round stage and it's a very rare thing for a non league team to get to the 3rd round let alone the 4th or 5th.

However, in the early years of the FA Cup it probably happened quite a lot, as I know Spurs won the whole competition in 1901 while a non-league club themselves.

Also, we were formed in 1876 and were non-league ourselves until 1899. We must have lost to non league opposition before then as our league record shows 7 losses in 1889-90, 3 in 1890-91, 3 in 1891-92, 6 in 1992-93, 2 in 1893-94, 1 in 1894-95, 4 in 1895-96, 1 in 1896-97, 3 in 1897-98 and 5 in 1898-99. We often only got as far as qualifying rounds in the FA Cup including 1899-00 the year we had entered div 2 for the first time.
 
Lefty's right. Without checking I know it's a very long time since we were beaten by a non-league team. I recall that when we were drawn against Grantham in 1974 it was a very long time since we had faced non-league opposition in the Cup. In fact, I think at the time we had gone longest of any League club in avoiding non-league opposition, something like 60 years even then. Given that we haven't lost to a non-league club since 1974, it is therefore at least well over a century since we did so. Note that before the first world war it was not unusual for Southern League clubs to do well in the Cup as it was a very strong league. Southampton reached the final as a non-league club and Tottenham won it. It doesn't answer the question, but things were very different in those days. Erimus will be here with the answer shortly, I'm sure.
 
Right, here's the answer. The last non-league team to beat Boro in the Cup was West Ham in 1911. West Ham were in the Southern League at the time.
 
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We had two goes to beat Nuneaton. And we got to the semi-final that year. And the UEFA Cup Final.
 
Our 1st season as a league club, 1899 - 1900 Robert Eglington scored our only goal in a 2-1 home defeat, becoming the 1st Boro player to score on their home debut, away debut & FAC debut
 
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