The Football Association Challenge Vase, also known as the Isuzu FA Vase for sponsorship reasons, is an annual football competition run by and named after The Football Association (The FA), for teams playing in Steps 5 and 6 of the English National League System. Nearly 600 teams participate in this knockout competition with semi-finals played over two legs. The final is played at Wembley Stadium.
Until 1974, football players were categorised as either professionals or amateurs. Amateurs were not paid (at least not officially) by their clubs; amateur clubs had their own national cup competition, the FA Amateur Cup. Professionals were paid to play by their clubs; until the creation of the FA Trophy in 1969 there was no national knock-out competition specifically for professional clubs outside the Football League.
In 1974, with many of the top amateur players receiving payment for playing, the Football Association abolished the distinction, scrapped the Amateur Cup and introduced the FA Vase for the majority of clubs who had previously played in the competition. Well over 200 clubs entered in the first season, 1974–75, when Hoddesdon Town of the Spartan League beat Epsom & Ewell of the Surrey Senior League 2–1 in the final at Wembley Stadium before a crowd of 9,000.
Eligible teams who played in the FA Vase the previous season and participated in the fourth round proper are exempt from qualifying, and start play in the second round proper of the Vase, unless they were promoted to a Step 4 league. (If they were promoted, they would play for the FA Trophy instead.)
Those teams that lost in the third round proper the previous season are, unless promoted to the Trophy, exempt until the first round proper.
Only five teams have won the FA Vase more than once. Whitley Bay are the only team to win the FA Vase three times in successive seasons, while Billericay Town, Tiverton Town and Halesowen Town have won back-to-back titles. As of 2017–18, at least one Northern League team has reached the final for 10 consecutive seasons, with teams from the league winning the title in all but two of those years. In 2017 Forest Green Rovers became the first FA Vase winners to go on to play in the English Football League, while one former Football League team (Glossop North End) have been beaten finalists.
