CHAIRBOYS AND SWANS-A BYE TO THE FINAL

23rd September 2000

Wycombe Wanderers Football Club is based in the town of High Wycombe in Bucks and compete in League One the third tier of the Football League. They play their home matches at Adams Park, on the western outskirts of High Wycombe, having moved after 95 years at Loakes Park in 1990. The stadium was named Adams Park in honour of benefactor and former captain Frank Adams. The club's nicknames are "The Chairboys" and "The Blues". On 30 June 2012, the Wycombe Wanderers Trust (Supporter owned) formally took over the club. The season also included their 125th anniversary, and the shirt design was an adaptation of their first-ever kit, in Oxford and Cambridge Blue halves (instead of quarters).

Wycombe Wanderers Football Club, originally called North Town Wanderers, is sited in the Chiltern Hills, a well wooded area of Buckinghamshire, was founded around 1884 by a group of young furniture trade workers, who called a meeting at the Steam Engine public house to form a football club and enter junior football. Hence the nickname Chairboys. 

The suffix Wanderers was adopted in honour of the famous FA Cup winners, The Wanderers**, who had visited the town in 1877 for a Round Two tie with the original High Wycombe, as the club was called then. They had beaten Wood Grange 4-0  in Round One. They then lost 0-9 to The Wanderers in Round Two. The Wanderers were made up from some of the top amateur footballers in the south of England, and went on to beat Barnes 4-1 after a 1-1 draw in Rd 3. In Rd 4 they beat the Sheffield club 3-0 and then got a BYE in the semi-final and won the 1878 final beating the Royal Engineers 3-1. The RE had beaten the Old Harrovians (old boys of Harrow School) in the semi-final 2-1.

In the final, Old Carthusian, Edward Hagarty Parry, was captain. He later played for England and in 1881 captained the Old Carthusians to FA Cup victory over the Old Etonians 2-0. The Wanderers, by this time had dissolved as a club.

Their first colours were the “Varsity” combination of Oxford and Cambridge blue. Originally the team played in halved jerseys, changing to stripes sometime early in the twentieth century. The present quartered shirts were introduced around 1930. The club's nickname of "The Chairboys" is thought to have been coined because the young men who formed the club were apprentices in the furniture making industry, sited in a well wooded area of the Chiltern Hills.

At the time of being a third tier side in 2000, Wycombe Wanderers (The Chairboys) got their name into the record books by reaching the FA Cup semi-final in 2000/01, but earlier in the same season they had made the headlines for another reason. Against Peterborough United at Adams Park in a Division 2 match on September 23rd 2000 Wycombe's Jamie Bates scored with the last kick of the first half. A Wycombe kick-off started the second period and seconds later, before a Peterborough player had touched the ball, Jermaine McSporran hit the Chairboys second goal. Two goals in just nine seconds of playing time without an opposition player touching the ball - unique or what!

The Swan has played a significant role in the history of the county of Buckinghamshire, so it comes as no surprise that a swan with a silver chain round its neck, is depicted in the crest of Wycombe Wanderers FC and appeared on shirts as early as the 1898-99 season. It has probably been associated with High Wycombe and the county and the ancient borough towns of the county since the time of Humphrey, 6th Earl of Stafford. He became the first Duke of Buckingham in 1444 and bore the Swan as his personal badge or crest. The association of a Swan with the county of Buckinghamshire had probably become well established by the time of his death in 1460.

** The club was initially formed as Forest Football Club in 1859 by a number of former public school pupils, primarily recent Old Harrovian school leavers, who wanted to continue to play the sport. Founder members included Charles W Alcock, who had a major part to play in the development of football. Several Old Foresters also played for the Forest club, old boys of Forest School which was located less than a mile north of the ground. Forest School is now a member of the Independent Schools FA.