High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Royal Engineers Association Football Club is an association football team representing the Corps of Royal Engineers, the "Sappers", of the British Army. In the 1870s it was one of the strongest sides in English football, winning the FA Cup in 1875 and being Cup Finalists in four of the first eight seasons of the competition. The Engineers were pioneers of the "combination game", where team-mates passed the ball to each other rather than kicking ahead and charging after the ball.