Mainland Football Federation

Welcome all football fans, officials and Mainland Football representatives to this year’s English Cup final where we will be facing Robbie and his Coastal Spirit team, staff and supporters for this year’s bragging rights.

Like ourselves, Coastal has made big strides forward this season to improve and close the gap to Christchurch United who last year won the lot. So, I think it is a fitting final for us to play against each other, for the fourth out of five 2024 meetings, now we have both secured National League. A massive achievement to Coastal on achieving that feat for the first time.

Coastal plays a tough, hardworking brand of football and is certainly a team that could pass us off the park, out muscle or out passion us. So, we will have to turn up correctly to deserve anything out of the game.

We are no strangers to the English Cup final with this being our 8^th visit on the bounce - so we will be going all out to retain the trophy that we lost last season.

I hope everyone enjoys the match and the game can be entertaining for the neutrals as well as the fans of both teams.

Dan Schwarz

It's with a great deal of satisfaction that Coastal Spirit football club go into the final of the English Cup, after a season that has seen us finish second in the Southern League and qualify for National League.

This was a result of a lot of hard work from the playing group stretching back to pre-season, which started in late January and tremendous support we have received from all at the Club.

We have had some success against Tech this year but as we head into this game we understanding that we are facing a very strong Cashmere Tech side that has finished the season very strongly scoring a lot goals along the way, we will clearly have to be at our best to get anything out of this game, we very much look forward to the challenge.

To both sets of supporters I hope you enjoy the day.

Robbie Stanton

History of the English Cup

Named after Robert English (1874-1934).

Mr English was born in England and arrived in Christchurch in 1903 to work as an engineer for the Christchurch Gasworks and was president of the Canterbury Football Association from 1911 until 1928.

He was largely responsible for the acquisition of English Park for the Canterbury Football Association code and the park was given his name in 1915 as a compliment to his work. He donated the English Cup for the knock-out competition in Canterbury first-grade Association football.

The first Cup Final, between Sydenham and Burnham, was played at the Canterbury Show Ground and required a replay before the Sydenham came back from 1 - 0 down at the break to win 3 - 2 to become the first name engraved on the trophy.

Morrison Mitsubishi