[1] By the end of the season, the Saints' main local rivals, Woolston Works had disbanded leaving St. Mary's as Southampton's most prominent and well-supported football club.

[4] Ned Bromley's career came to an end shortly after the 1889 final of the Hampshire Junior Cup, when he was seriously injured in a six-a-side tournament.

[8] The defence of the Hampshire Junior Cup started with a home match against Havant played at the County Ground on 24 November 1888.

A. Fry playing at full-back in place of Muir, alongside George Carter, Frank Bromley replacing his brother as a forward and four players (Stride, Mate, Delamotte and Farwell) making their competitive debut.

[4] St. Mary's received a bye in the next round seeing them through to a home tie against Fordingbridge Turks, the oldest team in Hampshire having been founded in 1868.

[6] The shipyard's football team, Woolston Works were now tenants of the Antelope Ground, which stood near the top of St. Mary's Road.

[1] Cowes's main protagonist was Staite, an infantry private stationed at Parkhurst Barracks, whose "beautiful dribbling" was causing difficulties for the St. Mary's defence requiring the combined attentions of Carter and Verney (at left-half) to contain him.

The home side requested that an extra half-hour should be played, but Carter, the St. Mary's captain, declined as the players and fans had to catch the ferry back to Southampton.

[1] The replay was set for a fortnight later at the County Ground for which special boats were chartered to bring the Cowes supporters over to the mainland.

[10] By now, the contest between the two clubs had produced great excitement amongst the public, and the crowd at the County Ground on the Wednesday afternoon was considerably larger than that on the previous Saturday.

[10] Cowes's initial protest, on the grounds that the linesman had not raised his flag until after the St. Mary's players appealed, was rejected by the Hampshire F.A.

With excitement in both Southampton and Cowes mounting further, over 800 supporters crossed from the Isle of Wight with the total crowd being estimated variously at 5,000 and 7,000, including "over 1,000 ladies".

[6] The players were also "fired up" for the rematch and Lieverman was kept busy in the Cowes goal until Fry eventually scrambled the ball home from a Verney corner kick.

St. Mary's lead was soon doubled when Verney shot as a team-mate charged the goalkeeper, allowing the ball to slip into the net.

[2] At the end of the season, the Bournemouth Guardian, edited by William Pickford, concluded that St. Mary's cup progress had "aroused the widest enthusiasm in the county and resulted in such large gates that the County Association certainly owes a debt of gratitude to either them or Cowes or both for raising them from a hand-to-mouth state of existence to that of having a satisfactory balance in the bank".