Morton Peto Betts (30 August 1847 – 19 April 1914) was a leading English sportsman of the late 19th century. He was notable for scoring the first goal in an English

FA Cup final The FA Cup Final is the last match in the FA Cup, Football Association Challenge Cup. It has regularly been one of the List of sports attendance figures, most attended domestic football events in the world, with an official attendance of 89,472 ...

Early life

Betts was the son of

Edward Betts Edward Ladd Betts (5 June 1815 – 21 January 1872) was an English civil engineering contractor who was mainly involved in the building of railways. Early life Edward Betts was born at Buckland, near Dover, son of William Betts (1790–1867 ...

of Preston Hall, Aylesford, a civil engineering contractor, and Ann Betts, née Peto.Carlaw D ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'', pp.43–44.
Available online
at the

Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians (ACS) was founded in England in 1973 for the purpose of researching and collating information about the history and statistics of cricket. Originally called the Association of Cricket Stati ...

. Retrieved 2020-06-02.)Ambrose
Brief profile of M.P.Betts
CricketArchive. Retrieved 2017-03-26. Edward was in business with Ann's brother, the railway entrepreneur Samuel Morton Peto, the pair operating as Peto and Betts until the firm was declared bankrupt in 1866. Morton was educated at

Harrow School Harrow School () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English boarding school for boys) in Harrow on the Hill, Greater London, England. The school was founded in 1572 by John Lyon (school founder), John Lyon, a local landowner an ...

.Mr Morton Peto Betts
Obituaries in 1914, ''

Wisden Cricketers' Almanack ''Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', or simply ''Wisden'', colloquially the Bible of Cricket, is a cricket reference book published annually in the United Kingdom. The description "Bible of cricket" (or variations thereof) has been applied to ''Wi ...

'', 1915. Retrieved 2017-03-26.

Sporting life

Betts was an amateur

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

and

cricketer Cricket is a Bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball game played between two Sports team, teams of eleven players on a cricket field, field, at the centre of which is a cricket pitch, pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two Bail (cr ...

. His most notable moment came when he scored the only goal in the 1872 FA Cup Final for Wanderers, the first final of the tournament. The goal was a relatively simple "tap-in", coming as a result of Walpole Vidal's successful

dribble In sports, dribbling is maneuvering a ball by one player while moving in a given direction, avoiding defenders' attempts to intercept the ball. A successful dribble will bring the ball past defenders legally and create opportunities to score. As ...

through the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

' defence. In the match, he played under the

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning ( orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's o ...

AH Chequer; Betts played for Harrow Chequers, a team associated with the school, who had been drawn to play Wanderers in the first round of the tournament but failed to fulfil the fixture. Betts usually played football as a full-back, though his one appearance for England national team – against

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

in 1877 – was as a

goalkeeper In many team sports that involve scoring goal (sport), goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie, or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or i ...

.Morton Peto Betts
EnglandStats. Retrieved 2020-03-28. By this time, he was with the Old Harrovians Football Club. He later became a referee, helped found the Kent Football Association and was a board member of

the Football Association The Football Association (the FA) is the Sports governing body, governing body of association football in England and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Bailiwick of Guernsey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. Formed in 1863, it is the oldest footb ...

for 20 years. His sporting career also featured

first-class cricket First-class cricket, along with List A cricket and Twenty20 cricket, is one of the highest-standard forms of cricket. A first-class match is of three or more days scheduled duration between two sides of eleven players each and is officially adju ...

appearances for

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, former county in South East England, now mainly within Greater London. Its boundaries largely followed three rivers: the River Thames, Thames in the south, the River Lea, Le ...

(one match) and

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ken ...

s (two matches). He played club cricket for a variety of sides, including Harrow Wanderers, Incogniti and Band of Brothers, a side closely associated with the Kent County club, as well as for

Essex County Cricket Club Essex County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Essex. Founded in 1876, the club had minor county status until 1894 w ...

in 1884, before they became a first-class county. He was secretary of Essex between 1887 and 1890 before resigning to take up the post of secretary of the newly formed British Baseball AssociationCarlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), pp. 60–61.
Available online
at the

. Retrieved 2020-12-21.) and as a Director of

Preston North End Baseball Club Preston North End Baseball Club were a short lived English professional baseball club, who played their home games at Deepdale, competing for the 1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain. Preston North End Baseball Club Limited were for ...

in the

1890 National League of Baseball of Great Britain Year 189 ( CLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Silanus and Silanus (or, less frequently, year 942 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 189 for t ...

Later life

He married twice, first to Jane Bouch in 1879 and then to Jane Morgan in 1901. He spent his final years living in France and died aged 66 in

Menton Menton (; in classical norm or in Mistralian norm, , ; ; or depending on the orthography) is a Commune in France, commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italia ...

, shortly before the outbreak of

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

.Morton Betts

CricInfo ESPNcricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a Sports journalism, sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including Liveblogging, liveblogs and sco ...

. Retrieved 2020-06-02.

References

Giller, Norman; 2004; 'Football and all That'; Hodder and Stoughton; pp15–16;

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Betts, Morton 1847 births 1914 deaths Men's association football forwards Men's association football fullbacks Men's association football goalkeepers England men's international footballers England men's representative footballers (1870–1872) English cricket administrators English cricketers English men's footballers Essex cricketers Harrow Chequers F.C. players Kent cricketers Middlesex cricketers People educated at Harrow School Wanderers F.C. players 19th-century English businesspeople Baseball in the United Kingdom People from Bloomsbury