BBC Scotland has recently launched a great little promotional video for this season's Scottish Cup tournament, in time for the fourth round ties later this month. They have animated the man on top of the trophy as he comes to life and the Victorian footballer kicks a ball around the Scottish Football Museum, ending up with a cracking goal against the motionless tinplate players, before quickly getting back into place as the museum attendant returns.
   But who was the original footballer on the cup? The Scottish Cup was commissioned in 1874 by the fledgling Scottish FA, who asked Glasgow silversmiths George Edward & Sons to come up with a suitably grand trophy. No cost was spared and the final bill came to £56 12 shillings (which included a set of medals) Trouble was, association football was in its infancy at the time, and the designer needed some help to create a lifelike representation of a player to stand on top.
   The inspiration for the figure was published in The Graphic after the first football international, played on 30 November 1872. One of the nine drawings by William Ralston shows a Scotland player steadfastly dribbling the ball while an English tackler is robustly pushed away by a teammate.

Having an action figure gave the Scottish Cup a unique identity, and helped to differentiate it from the original FA Cup, made two years earlier. In many respects that was a similar design, but it had a less adventurous static player on the lid, hand on hip, with the ball at his feet.
   Taking this theme further, I was surprised to find that this was not the only time that trophy designers took inspiration from printed sources. 

And remarkably the same scene, not so detailed but with some unmistakable similarities in the player positions, appears again on a later trophy. This photo shows the centrepiece of the original Scottish Juvenile Cup, which was made in 1899.
   I would love to know of any other early football trophies that have taken their inspiration from external sources.