| abstract | - Chelsea won 2–0 to win the FA Cup for the second time, the first having come in 1970. Their Dutch manager, Ruud Gullit, thus became the first foreign or non-white manager to win a major trophy with an English club. For most of the Chelsea players, it was the first major honour of their career, but for Mark Hughes, it was the fourth time that he had featured in an FA Cup winning side (having played on the winning Manchester United teams of 1985, 1990 and 1994), and his eighth major honour in all. For Middlesbrough, it was a second final defeat of the 1996-97 season (having lost the League Cup Final to Leicester City the previous month), to go with their controversial relegation from the Premier League.
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