Royal Engineers to face Upton Park FC at the Boleyn

With the announcement that the West Ham Ladies match on 5th June is likely to be cancelled, a match between the Royal Engineers and Upton Park FC is set to become the last game of football played at the Boleyn Ground. The match will be played on Monday 30th May.

The Royal Engineers have some history having won the first ever FA Cup in 1875 and the club is still going strong 153 years later. Thames Ironworks FC which later become West Ham United beat the Royal Engineers 6-0 in the preliminary round of the FA Cup way back on 23rd September 1899. William Joyce scored a hat trick that day in front of a 1,000 strong crowd at the Memorial Grounds.

Upton Park FC was founded in 1866 and the club were one of the 15 teams to play in the very first edition of the FA Cup in 1871-72; they never won the competition but did reach the quarter-finals on four occasions. They were also the inaugural winners of the London Senior Cup in 1882-83.

Though resolutely an amateur club, they inadvertently sparked the legalisation of professionalism in the game after complaining about Preston North End’s payments to players after the two met in the FA Cup in 1884; Preston were disqualified, but the incident made the FA confront the issue and, under threat of a breakaway, they allowed payments to players the following year.

The club were wound up in 1887 but were resurrected four years later in 1891. In 1892 they were founder members of the Southern Alliance, an early league competition amongst teams from southern England, but were bottom of the league with only one win to their name when the competition folded before the 1892-93 season ended – 3 years before Thames Ironworks FC was founded.

Admission to the Boleyn Ground is free on the day with a charity collection for the Bobby Moore Family Fund and the Army Benevolent Fund.