Question: Which two men's club sides have won three successive competition finals at the new Wembley? You probably knew Pep Guardiola's Manchester City won three League Cups on the bounce between 2018 and 2020 before adding a fourth in 2021 – but another side did the silverware hat-trick first. Whitley Bay, who play in the ninth-tier Northern Football League, won three successive FA Vase finals between 2009 and 2011 – an unprecedented achievement in non-league football.
The FA Vase, a national competition for amateur teams, was established in 1974; and in more than half a century The Seahorses are the only ones to win it four times – including those three on the trot. And they did so under the eye of an unassuming IT manager from Sunderland, who used "quiet moments in the day" to plan historic cup success. Ian Chandler, who had three spells at Whitley Bay as a player, became manager in 2004 and spent 10 years in charge.
It was no mean feat, as any non-league manager will tell you. Instead of focusing on work meetings, Chandler says he spent more time sorting hotel bookings or discussing scouting reports. His team were inspired by missing out on Wembley in 2007-08, when Whitley Bay reached the FA Vase semi-finals.
They lost 4-0 to Lowestoft Town in the first leg, and despite going 3-0 up inside 20 minutes of the return fixture at Bay's Hillheads Park stadium they were unable to overturn the deficit. After that elimination, Chandler developed a superstition of never again giving pre-match interviews - as the last time he did so was before the 4-0 defeat. Whether because of his renewed focus, or because of a desire among players to make amends, it steeled the group to make history.
"It's the hardest thing to keep a team together - as soon as players get noticed, they get picked up at higher level," Chandler tells BBC Sport. "But after we got to the Vase semis, players wanted to stay and prove what they could do. Despite being a lifelong Sunderland fan, Chandler admits basing his team on Kevin Keegan's Newcastle - with entertainment even placed above winning.
"There was a standing joke in the team, two or three at the back? One time we chased a game with two at the back," he says. "The Premier League can be so boring; fans want to be entertained, that's what we promised." Chandler was already a Whitley Bay hero when he was appointed manager by chairman Paul McIlduff, having scored the winner in the 2002 FA Vase final against Tiptree United at Villa Park.
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