The part-timers who won three Wembley finals in a row

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.