Sir Thomas Lipton was a businessman who rose to prominence in the early 20th century known now as the founder of Lipton tea.
In 1908, there was the Torneo Internazionale Stampa Sportiva which featured teams in Italy, Switzerland, Germany and France.
A year later, the football federations of all those named previous wanted to participate in an international competition but make it more competitive and invited England to take part, but they declined.
Thomas Lipton intervened and with help from the Italian Royal Family got the competition off the ground.
Dubbed the 'First World Cup' by many it featured club sides in those nations, but it is not even the first international competition - just the most well known.
What is interesting is the English team invited to the tournament was an amateur side in County Durham in the North East of England called West Auckland.
It is not really known why West Auckland were selected for the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy but some speculate it was a mistake and the invitation was meant to go to a club with the same initials Woolwich Arsenal FC - the club now known as the Premier League side Arsenal.
The competition was held in Turin in 1909 and featured four teams from the four nations Stuttgarter Sportfreunde from Germany, Torino XI from Italy and Winterthur from Switzerland.
West Auckland went on to win the competition, beating Winterthur 2-0 in the final.
Three years later, the competition ran again and West Auckland returned to defend their title this time against more established clubs today in Torino, Juventus and FC Zurich - three clubs who now play in their countries top flight.
West Auckland again won the competition beating Juventus 6-1 in the 1911 final again hosted in Turin.
The club took the Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy home and although their club did not develop into the giants of the other clubs in the competition - the club is still going today.
West Auckland Town FC play in Division One of the Northern Premier League, level nine on the football pyramid.
The original trophy was held in the working men's club in West Auckland until it was stolen in 1994 - an exact replica of this trophy is still there to this day.
Although not actually the 'First World Cup' it is a fantastic look into the history of international tournaments.
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