Wanderers Football Club is an English amateur football club based in London. Founded as Forest Football Club in 1859, the club changed its name to Wanderers in 1864. Comprising mainly former pupils of the leading English public schools, Wanderers was among the dominant teams of the early years of organised football and won the Football Association Challenge Cup (known in the modern era as the FA Cup) on five occasions, including defeating Royal Engineers in the first FA Cup final in 1872.
The club played only friendly matches until the advent of the FA Cup in 1871, with the rules often differing from match to match as various sets of rules were in use at the time. Even after the formation of The Football Association (the FA) in 1863, of which the club was among the founder members, Wanderers continued to play matches under other rules, but became one of the strongest teams playing by FA rules. They won the FA Cup three times in succession during the late 1870s, a feat which has only been repeated once. Among the players who represented the club were C. W. Alcock, the so-called "father of modern sport", and A.F. Kinnaird, regarded as the greatest player of his day. The club took its name from never having a home stadium of its own but playing at various locations in London and the surrounding area. By the 1880s the club's fortunes had declined and it was reduced to playing only an annual match against Harrow School, the alma mater of many of its founders.
The club was reformed in 2009, reportedly with the endorsement of the descendants of the Alcock family, for the purposes of fundraising for UNICEF UK. Since 2011, the revived club has competed in the Surrey South Eastern Combination.
Logo rationale: Wanderers never wore badges on their kit until after the club reformed. It was suggested that they might have worn the badge of Harrow School as many of the players matriculated from there but there is no recorded evidence for this. The existing logo, which was always intended to be temporary, was derived from the Harrow School badge; a rampant lion with the addition of a 5-point star and crown to illustrate the five FA Cup wins.
Wanderers are known to have played in orange, purple, and black for at least part of their existence, although as no photographs of the team exist, the exact design is not known. A replica shirt sold in the modern era has the three colours in horizontal stripes,[32] a likely arrangement given that horizontally-striped shirts were very common during the Victorian era.[33] The programme for the club's 1875 away match with Queen's Park, however, lists Wanderers as playing in white shirts. In the absence of shirt numbering, which would not be introduced for another sixty years, the programme identifies the individual players by the colours of their stockings (socks) or caps, with Alcock and Kinnaird both listed as wearing blue and white caps and Jarvis Kenrick identified by his cerise and French grey cap, the colours of his former club Clapham Rovers.[19] The modern club's crest is derived from the Harrow School crest, which may have adorned the shirts of the original team.[34]
