The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy was one of the world's first international football tournaments, held twice in Turin , in 1909 and 1911. The trophy was donated by the Scottish industrialist Sir Thomas Johnstone Lipton and named after him. The tournament mode meant that the team that would win the first two runs of the tournament in a row would win the "World Cup". Since West Auckland Town won both editions of the tournament, the club was allowed to take permanent possession of the trophy. The story of winning two cups was filmed in the 1982 British television film The World Cup: A Captain's Tale . The tournament is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the “first soccer world cup”. The tournament is the successor to the 1908 Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva , which can probably be regarded as the first international football club tournament, although it has never nearly reached the level of popularity of this tournament.
Participants in the tournament were provided by the national associations of Switzerland , Germany and the local city clubs from Italy . The The Football Association of England has rejected an invitation to participate. Since Lipton did not want to start the tournament without a British team, however, he asked West Auckland Town, an amateur team from County Durham that had played in the Northern Football League since 1908 and consisted mainly of coal miners.
There are two theories as to why Lipton came to West Auckland to participate in the tournament: The one that is popular in the city itself is that Lipton wanted Woolwich Arsenal to participate, but to contact his secretary with the instruction "WA" which is short for West Auckland has interpreted. This explanation is unlikely, however, as Arsenal had only moved up to the second highest division in England at the time and was far from being as well known as it is today, and there is also no known connection between Lipton and Woolwich Arsenal. The more likely theory is that a Lipton employee was in contact with the Northern League at the time and asked there who wanted to participate in the tournament. The original trophy, which West Auckland got forever after the second victory in 1911, was stolen in January 1994 after years of being exhibited in the club's "Working Men's Club" in West Auckland. Now there is a more secure replica of the trophy in place. West Auckland still carries the trophy in its club logo to this day.
Torino XI (was formed mainly from players from Juventus and FC Torino , the two major clubs at the venue)
Sports fans from Stuttgart
West Auckland Town (unofficial representative, see above)
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