The 2012–13 FA Cup was the 132nd season of the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football compet ...

, the main domestic cup competition in

English football Association football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association f ...

, and the oldest

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

knock-out competition in the world. It was sponsored by

Budweiser Budweiser () is an American-style pale lager, part of AB InBev. Introduced in 1876 by Carl Conrad & Co. of St. Louis, Missouri, Budweiser has become a large selling beer company in the United States. ''Budweiser'' may also refer to an unrela ...

for a second consecutive season, thus the competition name was The FA Cup with Budweiser. A total of 833 clubs applied to enter, with 758 clubs being accepted into the competition. The preliminary rounds commenced on 11 August 2012, with the first round proper played on 3 November 2012.

The final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of cont ...

was played on 11 May 2013 at

Wembley Stadium Wembley Stadium (branded as Wembley Stadium connected by EE for sponsorship reasons) is a football stadium in Wembley, London. It opened in 2007 on the site of the Wembley Stadium (1923), original Wembley Stadium, which was demolished from 200 ...

in London between

Manchester City Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

and

Wigan Athletic Wigan Athletic Football Club () is an English professional association football club based in Wigan, Greater Manchester, England. The team competes in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1932, ...

, with Wigan Athletic winning 1–0. As a result, Wigan Athletic participated in the

group stage A tournament is a competition involving at least three competitors, all participating in a sport or game. More specifically, the term may be used in either of two overlapping senses: # One or more competitions held at a single venue and concen ...

of the following season's UEFA Europa League. Chelsea were the defending champions, having beaten

Liverpool Liverpool is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the List of English districts by population, 10th largest English district by population and its E ...

2–1 in last season's final, but were eliminated in the semi-finals by Manchester City. Three days after winning the cup, Wigan made history by becoming the first side to win the cup and get relegated in the same season, after they lost 4–1 to

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostl ...

, which sealed their relegation to the

Football League Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

Teams

Schedule

The schedule for the 2012–13 FA Cup, as announced by

the Football Association The Football Association (also known as The FA) is the governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest football association in the world a ...

, is as follows:

Qualifying rounds

All of the teams entering the competition that are not members of either the

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

the Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

had to compete in the qualifying rounds to win a place in the competition proper.

First round proper

Teams from League One and League Two entered at this stage, along with the winners from the Fourth Round Qualifying. The draw was made on 21 October 2012 with ties to be played on 2–4 November 2012. Yate Town and Slough Town were the lowest-ranked teams left in the competition, both competing in level 8 of the

English football league system The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isl ...

Second round proper

The draw for this round was made on 4 November 2012 with the ties played on the weekend of 1–2 December 2012. Hastings United, from the seventh tier of English football, were the lowest-ranked team in the second round proper.

Bradford City Bradford City Association Football Club is an English professional football club in Bradford, West Yorkshire. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system and are currently managed by Mark Hughes. Th ...

were disqualified from this season's competition for fielding

Curtis Good Curtis Edward Good (born 23 March 1993) is an Australian footballer who plays as a defender for Melbourne City in the A-League. He began his career with the club (then called Melbourne Heart) before signing for Newcastle United in 2012. He su ...

, who was ineligible to play, in a 1–1 draw against

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings wh ...

. As a result, it was presumed that

won by walkover, but Bradford eventually made a successful appeal to the FA against expulsion and were reinstated and fined £1,000 instead allowing a replay to go ahead.

would eventually dump

out of the cup after winning that replay.

Third round proper

Teams from the

and

entered at this stage, along with the winners from the second round. The draw for the third round was made on 2 December 2012, with the ties played on the weekend of 5–6 January 2013. Luton Town's Alex Lawless won the player of the round award. The results were as follows: # Alex Lawless, Luton Town # Danny Hylton, Aldershot Town # Matthew Barnes-Homer,

Macclesfield Town Macclesfield Town Football Club was an English professional football club based in Macclesfield, Cheshire, that was wound-up after a High Court ruling on 16 September 2020. Initially known as Macclesfield F.C., the club was formed in 1874 and ...

Liam Bridcutt Liam Robert Bridcutt (born 8 May 1989) is a professional footballer who plays as a defensive midfielder for Blackpool. Born in England, he represented the Scotland national team. Bridcutt started his career with Chelsea, but did not make a lea ...

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

# Andrea Orlandi,

Hastings United remained the lowest-ranked football team in the third round proper, competing in level 7 of the

Fourth round proper

The draw for the fourth round took place on 6 January 2013, with

and Luton Town, both from the

Conference National The National League, known as the Vanarama National League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest level of the National League System and fifth-highest of the overall English football league system. It is the highest league that is semi-professi ...

(5) remaining as the lowest-placed teams still in the competition.

Fifth round proper

The draw for the fifth round took place on 27 January 2013, with Luton Town from the

(5) remaining as the lowest-ranked team still in the Cup.

Sixth round proper

The draw for the quarter-finals took place on 17 February 2013, with

Barnsley Barnsley () is a market town in South Yorkshire, England. As the main settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley and the fourth largest settlement in South Yorkshire. In Barnsley, the population was 96,888 while the wider Borough ha ...

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, eas ...

and

Blackburn Rovers Blackburn Rovers Football Club is a professional football club, based in Blackburn, Lancashire, England, which competes in the , the second tier of the English football league system. They have played home matches at Ewood Park since 1890. Th ...

all from the Championship remaining as the lowest-ranked teams.

Semi-finals

The draw for the semi-finals took place on 10 March 2013, with

from the Championship (2) remaining as the lowest-placed team still in the Cup. The draw was carried out by

Edgar Davids Edgar Steven Davids (; born 13 March 1973) is a Dutch-Surinamese former professional footballer and current coach. After beginning his career with Ajax, winning several domestic and international titles, he subsequently played in Italy for AC ...

and Graeme Le Saux at

in London.

Final

Prior to kick off as Manchester City had already qualified for the

2013–14 UEFA Champions League The 2013–14 UEFA Champions League was the 59th season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 22nd season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final was p ...

, therefore Wigan Athletic had already secured a place in

2013–14 UEFA Europa League The 2013–14 UEFA Europa League was the 43rd season of Europe's secondary club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the fifth season under its current title. The 2014 UEFA Europa League Final was played between Sevilla and Benfica at ...

, regardless of whether they won or lost.

Top scorers

Broadcasting rights

The domestic broadcasting rights for the competition were held by the

free-to-air Free-to-air (FTA) services are television (TV) and radio services broadcast in unencrypted form, allowing any person with the appropriate receiving equipment to receive the signal and view or listen to the content without requiring a subscripti ...

channel ITV and the subscription channel

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

. ITV has held the rights since 2007–08, while ESPN gained FA Cup coverage from the 2010–11 season following the collapse of Setanta in the UK. Under the Ofcom code of protected sporting events, the FA Cup Final must be broadcast live on UK

terrestrial television Terrestrial television or over-the-air television (OTA) is a type of television broadcasting in which the signal transmission occurs via radio waves from the terrestrial (Earth-based) transmitter of a TV station to a TV receiver having an ante ...

. These matches were broadcast live on UK television: ¹ITV unless stated otherwise
²Braintree Town vs. Tranmere Rovers was originally scheduled to be on ITV but because the game was postponed it was moved to ITV4

References

External links

The FA Cup at thefa.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fa Cup 2012-13 2012-13 2012–13 domestic association football cups