1996–97 FA Cup 1996–97 FA Cup The 1996–97 FA Cup (known as The FA Cup sponsored by Littlewoods for sponsorship reasons) was the 116th season of the FA Cup. The tournament started in August 1996 for clubs from non-league football and the competition proper started in October 1996 for teams from the Premier League and the Football League. The tournament was won by Chelsea with a 2–0 victory over Middlesbrough in the final at Wembley stadium. The First Round featured those non-league teams who had come through the qualifying rounds and the teams from the third and fourth tiers of the English football
2000–01 FA Cup qualifying rounds 2000–01 FA Cup qualifying rounds The 2000–01 FA Cup Qualifying Rounds opened the 120th season of competition in England for 'The Football Association Challenge Cup' (FA Cup), the world's oldest association football single knockout competition. This season saw invites extended to some teams from Level 10 in the English football pyramid. With the larger number of clubs entering the tournament from non-League teams (Levels 5 through 10), a new Extra Preliminary Round was added to the tournament. As a result, the competition started with six rounds of preliminary (2) and qualifying (4) knockouts for these non-League teams. The 32 winning