Cuthbert Ottaway lost the delayed replay 0–2. Although the precise nature of Ottaway's ankle injury remains unknown, there is no evidence that he never played senior football again after the 1875 Cup Final. His biographer, Michael Southwick, suggests that "the damage sustained to his ankle... signalled the end of his footballing career." As an international, Ottaway was selected to lead the England team travelling to Partick to meet Scotland on 30 November 1872 in what is now recognised as the first international match to be played. (England had met a "Scotland" team in five earlier friendlies, but these matches are not regarded
Cuthbert Ottaway King's Scholar) and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he displayed a versatility as a sportsman matched only by his near-contemporary Alfred Lyttelton. Representing his school in the annual cricket match against Harrow, twice victor in the Public Schools' Rackets Doubles Championship, and winning Blues for representing his university at football (1874), cricket (1870–73), racquets (1870–73), athletics (1873) and real tennis (1870–72), Ottaway was – an Oxford newspaper remembered after his death – "a great cricketer... the best amateur racquet player of his time, a capital football player and a fair sprint runner. It has fallen to the lot of few