Milk Cup

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

1 Previous winners
2 Media coverage
3 External links
4 See also

For sponsorship reasons the English Football League Cup was also named "Milk Cup" between 1982 and 1986.

The Milk Cup is an international youth football tournament held annually in Northern Ireland. The cup matches are mainly played in the Coleraine/north coast area of Northern Ireland. The cup is run on a single match knock-out basis. It has three different sections, with entrants divided into age categories:

Elite - Under 19's - national sides
Premier - U17's - club sides and national sides
Junior - U15's - club sides and national sides

Clubs and national teams from anywhere in the World may compete.

The Milk Cup began in 1983 with sixteen teams participating at an Under 16 (Premier) level. Motherwell F.C. from Scotland were the first winners. It was founded by Jim Weir, Victor Leonard and Bertie Peacock.

The competition was extended in 1985 when an extra age group, the Under 14 (Junior) section was introduced and again the first champions were from Scotland, as Rangers F.C. won the Milk Cup at that age level.

The Under 19 (Elite) section was introduced in 1995 with the Welsh finishing the tournament as winners.

Many great players in international football have taken part in the Milk Cup, players such as David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Wayne Rooney have all competed at some level Milk Cup. In the Football World Cup 2002 there were 30 Milk Cup veterans playing.

To celebrate the competition's silver jubilee, a friendly match took place between Northern Ireland and two-time junior section winners Everton F.C. at the Coleraine Showgrounds on July 14th 2007. Everton won the tie 2-0.

[edit] Previous winners

Year	Elite	Premier	Junior
1983	Founded in 1995	Motherwell F.C.	Founded in 1985
1984		Rangers F.C.	Founded in 1985
1985		Newcastle United F.C.	Rangers F.C.
1986		Dundee United F.C.	Craigavon United F.C.
1987		Crewe Alexandra F.C.	Dundee United F.C.
1988		Liverpool F.C.	Home Farm F.C.
1989		Newcastle United F.C.	Dungannon Swifts F.C.
1990		Tottenham Hotspur F.C.	Crewe Alexandra F.C.
1991		Manchester United F.C.	Norwich City F.C.
1992		Rangers F.C.	Norwich City F.C.
1993		Cherry Orchard F.C.	Slovakia
1994		Heart of Midlothian F.C.	Middlesbrough F.C.
1995	Wales	Russia	Everton F.C.
1996	Turkey	Tottenham Hotspur F.C.	West Ham United F.C.
1997	Northern Ireland	Middlesbrough F.C.	West Ham United F.C.
1998	Turkey	Chile	Crewe Alexandra F.C.
1999	Brazil	Crewe Alexandra F.C.	Manchester City F.C.
2000	Chile	Turkey	Charlton Athletic F.C.
2001	Mexico	Paraguay	Norwich City F.C.
2002	Paraguay	Leeds United A.F.C.	Everton F.C.
2003	Paraguay	Manchester United F.C.	Racing Club de Avellaneda
2004	Turkey	Heart of Midlothian F.C.	Maccabi Haifa F.C.
2005	USA	FC Barcelona	Lyngby Boldklub
2006	Paraguay	Spartak Moscow	Swindon Town F.C.
2007	Israel	Fluminense	Club Deportivo Guadalajara

Great players started showing their talents at the Northern Ireland Milk Cup such as Joe Cole, David Beckham,Wayne Rooney, Steve McManaman, Peter Crouch, Ryan Giggs, Belozoglu Emre, Gary Neville, Joey Barton, Michael Carrick, Craig Bellamy, James Milner, James Vaughan]], [Michael Owen]].

[edit] Media coverage

Some Milk Cup matches are broadcast on BBC Two Northern Ireland, made available to the rest of the UK via BBCi and some other Milk Cup matches are broadcast online at http://www.bbc.co.uk/northernireland/milkcup