West Ham United co-owner David Gold has sold a historic edition of the FA Cup for £760,000, 15 years after bought the trophy claiming he wanted to preserve a piece of footballing history.
The trophy was the second version of the FA Cup and was used from 1896 to 1910. The Football Association changed the trophy to a forerunner of the version used today when it realised that no patent had been taken out on the design.
Gold sold the cup at auction house Bonhams, which described it as “a unique piece of English football history – the oldest surviving FA Cup presented to the winning teams between 1896 and 1910, including Manchester United, Manchester City, Everton, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur".
Gold bought the trophy from the family of the former footballer and FA president Lord Kinnaird. Until recently it had been displayed in the National Football Museum in Manchester.
The original FA Cup was stolen in 1895 and never recovered.
Managing director of Bonhams Knightsbridge, Jon Baddeley, said: “We are very proud to have been entrusted with the sale of this legendary cup. It embodies so much of the early history of our national game that it can, without exaggeration, be described as a national treasure.”
