The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy West Auckland Football Club Medal (the First World Cup Medal), awarded to Alfred Edwin (Tot) Gubbins; together with a 9ct. yellow gold and enamel football medal for the Nursing Cup Competition, 1904-5, awarded to Alfred Edwin (Tot) Gubbins. HISTORY The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, often referred to as the First World Cup, first took place in 1909 in Turin. Italy, Germany and Switzerland all sent professional club sides, however, the Football Association of England refused their invitation. Not wanting England to be unrepresented, Lipton invited West Auckland Football Club as an amateur side, suspicions are cast around a potential administrative error and Lipton meaning to contact Woolwich Arsenal Football Club instead. West Auckland went on to win the tournament, beating FC Winterthur in the final. PROVENANCE Alfred Edwin (Tot) Gubbins, born in Bishop Auckland 1884, married Jane Hannah Henderson in the Parish Church of New Shildon, Co. Durham, 1907. Profession given on marriage certificate as Shunter, Tot was a miner from an early age, but showed aptitude on the pitch winning a place on the 1909 Lipton Trophy Winning West Auckland Team. In 1912 he, his wife and daughter, left England for New Zealand on the ship Turakino and lived in Upper Hutt, North Island and later to Marton, served as a signal man for the New Zealand railways. He joined the Second Division Reserves in 1917 and was nominated to the Sir Walter Scott Lodge No. 15 in 1920. He died at the age of fifty from a heart complaint in 1934. His grandson, Philip Alfred Anderson, currently resides in Lower Hutt City, New Zealand, has offered the medals up for auction. See illustration