Sheffield United Football Club vs The World

The Carrier Bag Firm informs us about the World Championship of 'winner stays on'.

Words: Phil Rose

Winner Stays On

Maybe you saw that Chelsea beat SE Palmeiras (of Brazil) in the FIFA World Club Championship in Abu Dhabi in February 2022.

Did you also see that, when Brentford beat Chelsea 4-1 in early April, The Bees put out an emoji-bejazzled bantz Tweet asking if they were World Champions now?

Nice try. Not without humour. But. No mate. You're not.

It's an interesting twist though. What if the World Champions were simply Winner Stays On? The team that beat the team that beat the team. Interesting idea. But, you wouldn't start with that random Chelsea win in 2022 in Abu Dhabi, would you?

To do it properly, you'd have to have a look at the life and times of Jarvis Kenrick. Born in Chichester in 1852. Jarvis lived until he was…ninety-six!! Man, he had some stories to tell his grandkids, and plenty of time to tell them.

Jarvis won the FA Cup three years running playing for Wanderers. He scored in the 1877 Final and bagged twice in the same game the following year. Earlier, in 1871, Jarvis had played for an English representative side against Scotland. He once took ALL TEN wickets in an innings for Beddington Cricket Club. And, he played one First Class cricket game for Surrey. Some tales to tell.

But, none of those is the reason Jarvis Kenrick is in this story. Before he joined Wanderers in 1874, Jarvis had scored two, including the opener, for Clapham Rovers in a three-nil hammering of Upton Park on 11 November 1871. That opener was the first goal, in the first round of the FA Cup, in the first season it was played. Quite simply, it was the FIRST goal scored in competitive football as we now know it. Jarvis was eighteen. And I hope Jarvis dined out on that for the remaining of his seventy-eight years. He's a God 'round our way.

That day, in 1871, Jarvis's double made Clapham Rovers the reigning World Champions in Football’s “Game One”. Just a month later, in December 1871, Wanderers beat Clapham Rovers 1-0 in World Championship Game Two. The Unofficial Football Club Championship had changed hands. We were up and running. Winner Stays On.

And, indeed, Brentford Twitter Guy, you're selling your famous old football club short. Forget beating Chelsea in 2022. Before Chelsea were even formed, Brentford had already lifted this Winner Stays On World Championship, in Game 613, in October 1902, when they beat Reading 2-0 in the Western League.

While we're at it, are you familiar with the work of Ylber Ramadani? He's also in this story. On Wednesday, 8 June 2022, Ylber signed for Aberdeen from MTK Budapest. He was born in Germany in 1996. Represented Kosovo in Youth Football, and is a full Albanian international.

Before signing for Aberdeen, in Game 5216 of the World Championship, on 15 May 2022, Ylder scored on 90+3 for MTK Budapest in the 3-0 defeat of Debreceni VSC in the Hungarian Nemzeti Bajnokság 1.

Jarvis Kenrick scored the first World Championship goal, and Ylder Ramadani scored the most recent goal in this, the Unofficial Football Club Championship (UFCC). Incidentally, despite Ylder's late goal for MTK, they were already relegated before that game. So, the World Championship will start 2022/23 in the Hungarian second division. Lovely.