The Football Association Challenge Vase is an annual football competition for teams playing below Step 4 of the English National League System. For the 2008–09 season 514 entrants were accepted, with two qualifying rounds preceding the six proper rounds, semi-finals (played over two legs) and final to be played at Wembley Stadium.

The 2012 winners were Dunston UTS, who beat West Auckland 2–0, in an all Northern League tie on 13 May at Wembley Stadium.

Until 1974, football players were either professionals or amateurs. Professionals were paid to play by their clubs, and the only cup competitions such clubs were allowed to enter were the FA Cup and, for clubs outside The Football League, the FA Trophy. Amateurs, on the other hand, did not get paid (at least not officially) by their clubs, and such clubs had their own cup competition, the FA Amateur Cup.

In 1974, with many of the top amateur players receiving payment for playing, The Football Association abolished the distinction, scrapped the Amateur Cup and introduced the FA Vase for the majority of clubs who had previously played in the competition. Well over 200 clubs entered in the first season, 1974–75 and Hoddesdon Town of the Spartan League beat Epsom & Ewell of the Surrey Senior League 2–1 in the final at Wembley Stadium before a crowd of 9,000.

A vase ( /ˈvɑːz/, /ˈveɪs/, or /ˈveɪz/) is an open container, often used to hold cut flowers. It can be made from a number of materials including ceramics and glass. The vase is often decorated and thus used to extend the beauty of its contents.

Vases are defined as having a certain anatomy. Lowest is the foot, a distinguishable base to the piece. The design of the base may be bulbous, flat, carinate, or another shape. Next, the body, which forms the main and often largest portion of the piece. Resting atop the body is the shoulder, where the body curves inward. Then the neck, where the vase is given more height. Lastly, the lip, where the vase flares back out at the top. All these attributes can be seen in the picture at right. Many vases are also given handles. Today, the shapes of vases have evolved from the conventional ones to modern designs and shapes.

The vase has also developed as an art medium unto itself. The ancient Greeks famously used vases to depict scenes. It has since been developed and in 2003 the winner of the Turner Prize was Grayson Perry, for vase art.

The Association is a pop music band from California in the folk rock or soft rock genre. During the 1960s, they had numerous hits at or near the top of the Billboard charts and were the lead-off band at 1967's Monterey Pop Festival. As of 2011^[update], they are still performing.

Jules Alexander (born September 25, 1943, Chattanooga, Tennessee) was in Hawaii in 1962 serving a stint in the Navy when he met Terry Kirkman (born December 12, 1939, Salina, Kansas), a visiting salesman. The two young musicians jammed together and promised to get together once Alexander was discharged. That happened a year later; the two eventually moved to Los Angeles and began exploring the city's music scene in the mid-1960s. (Kirkman played in groups with Frank Zappa for a time before Zappa went on to form The Mothers of Invention). Eventually, at a Monday night hootenanny at the LA nightclub The Troubadour, in 1964, an ad hoc group called The Inner Tubes was formed by Terry, Jules and Doug Dillard, whose rotating membership contained, at one time or another, Cass Elliot, David Crosby and many others who drifted in and out. This led, in 1965, to the forming of The Men, a 13 piece folk-rock band. This group had a brief spell as the house band at The Troubadour.