There’s a well known story about Derby County in the FA Cup. The tale goes that, back in 1895, the club displaced a group of resident travellers by moving permanently into the Baseball Ground stadium. Displeased, the travellers supposedly placed a curse on the ground’s new occupants to prevent them from ever winning the FA Cup.
Three times in the coming eight years, fears that the Rams were indeed cursed in the cup were vindicated as the Midlands side lost a trio of the tournament’s finals. Forty years without reaching a final passed before Derby finally broke the curse, winning the cup in 1946.