[Ads-l] Antedating of "World Cup" (Soccer)

Wed Jul 22 21:28:11 UTC 2026

Wonderful work, Fred and Dave. The item below might be useful as a
bracketed citation. The first FIFA World Cup occurred in 1930.
Planning for the FIFA World Cup began a few years earlier.

In April 1927 columnist Jack Hill of the "Liverpool Echo" in England
envisioned a hypothetical "world's championship at football," and a
subhead of the article used the distinctive phrase "WORLD CUP
COMPETITION". Note, Jack Hall was writing about "association football"
(soccer) and not rugby.

Date: April 30, 1927
Newspaper: Liverpool Echo
Newspaper Location: Liverpool, Merseyside, England
Article: A World Game
Author: Jack Hill
Quote Page 2, Column 1
Database: Newspapers.com

https://www.newspapers.com/article/liverpool-echo-worldcup/202201043/

[Begin excerpt]
WORLD CUP COMPETITION.

... If I am right in this conclusion, then it seems to me that we are
rapidly heading for the day when there will be something in the nature
of a world's championship at football: when the players of many
countries will do battle for a world trophy on knock-out lines. We
shall still have our English Cup competition, of course ...
[End excerpt]

Garson

On Wed, Jul 22, 2026 at 4:28 PM Shapiro, Fred
<00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> Great work, Dave !
>
> Fred
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of dave at wilton.net <dave at WILTON.NET>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2026 7:32 AM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "World Cup" (Soccer)
>
>
> There is this from 1929, a reference to the FIFA World Cup:
>
> Associated Press. “U.S. Sends Soccer Team to Europe.” Milwaukee Journal (Wisconsin), 23 January 1929, 19/3. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers
>
> “At a meeting Tuesday of the national and international games and foreign relations committee of the United States Football association it was decided to send a soccer team to represent the United States in the world cup competition of the Federation Internationale de Football association. The games will be staged in Europe in 1930.”
>
>
>
> And I found this nominal use in other sports, in this case billiards, from 1879 (there are lots of uses prior to 1930 in other sports):
>
> “Billiards.” Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), 28 May 1879, 3/4. ProQuest: Newspapers.
>
> “Slosson has withdrawn his $250 forfeit money put up March the 24th, when he issued his challenge to Maurice Vignaux to play billiards in Paris under the Collender Challenge Cup rules. This action is taken because Slosson would now find it inconvenient to go to Paris, as a match with Vignaux could not be played until after July the 25th, the limit stipulated in the challenge, and also because intends to again challenge Schaefer at an early day to play for the monarch championship of the world cup.”
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Shapiro, Fred" <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 22, 2026 6:53am
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: [ADS-L] Antedating of "World Cup" (Soccer)
>
>
>
> World Cup (OED, 2., 1949)
>
> [1933 Saturday Herald (Dublin, Ireland) 1 July 11/3 (Newspapers.com) In connection with the World's Cup competition they had been drawn with Holland and Belgium.]
>
> 1935 Manchester Guardian 28 May 5/6 (Newspapers.com) G. S. Kimpton, the English football trainer ... had charge of the French side which, though beaten in the World Cup competition in Italy last year, made an excellent impression.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
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