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Football Quiz - Answers

Q: Once you have done it, you can't do it again. Aston Villa did it at their first attempt and Manchester United did it in 1992. Tottenham Hotspur, Wolverhampton Wanderers and Manchester City have also done it. Leeds United and West Ham United haven't done it. No-one did it last season. No-one can do it this season. What is it?
A: Complete the set of winning the three major domestic trophies (League, FA Cup, League Cup) by winning the League Cup (but not necessarily in the same season, of course).

You can only do it once, because you can only COMPLETE a set on one occasion. Aston Villa had won both the League and FA Cup before the League Cup began. So when they won the first League Cup in 1961, they had completed the set at the first attempt. Manchester United managed it with their Rumbelows League Cup win in 1992. West Ham have not done it because they have never won the League title or League Cup. Leeds United have not done it because they completed the set with their FA Cup win in 1972 (having won the League Cup in 1968). Of course, that also means that Leeds can NEVER do it.

The last bit of the question is badly phrased, though. This question originated in about February 2000, so what it was saying was that no-one completed the set by winning the League Cup in 1998/99 and no-one could do so in 1999/2000. The 1999 League Cup winners were Tottenham Hotspur, who had completed the set with their League Cup win in 1971. The 2000 Worthington Cup finalists were Tranmere Rovers and Leicester City, neither of whom had previously won the League title or the FA Cup.

In 2001/02, Blackburn Rovers joined the list of teams who have "done it" with their League Cup victory over Tottenham Hotspur.

Unfortunately, because this question is rather complicated it got distorted in the telling. It is an important part of the answer that the set is completed by a League Cup victory, rather than a victory in one of the other two competitions.

Readers of the original version of this page will know that I also fell foul of the complication by including Newcastle in the question. Thanks to Ray Slater for pointing out to me that Newcastle have not won the League Cup.

I have seen a version of the question that includes the phrase "Chelsea did it in 1970". Well, Chelsea did indeed complete the set of major domestic trophies with their FA Cup win in 1970, but that's not good enough for the question. Because the Chelsea part had been added, someone spotted that Leeds did have a complete set of trophies, so they had to be moved from the "haven't done it" list to the "have done it" list. However, West Ham got moved into the incorrect list at the same time, so it really is no wonder that people had difficulty answering the question.

Finally, I have heard an alternative answer which is "appeared in major cup finals in successive seasons, winning one and losing the other". This is clearly wrong because in early 2000, Leicester City could have managed this by winning the Worthington Cup, having lost in the previous year's final. It fails on other counts as well - for example, Aston Villa won the League Cup in 1961, but did not lose the FA Cup final in 1960 (which is the only way they could have done it at the first attempt).