NEWCASTLE, England — A rare medal identified as a memento of the first soccer “world cup” is expected to fetch $8.095 (£5,000) at auction in the UK this month.

It marks the 1909 victory of West Auckland, an amateur team from County Durham, in northeastern England, 21 years before the first official FIFA World Cup, the auctioneers said Friday.

The players, who were mostly miners, pawned their possessions to pay for the trip to Turin, Italy, where they defeated Stuttgart 2-0 before beating FC Winterthur of Switzerland 2-0 in the final.

The anonymous seller found the 102-year-old winner’s medal at the bottom of a box of soccer programs bought at a swap meet.

He said, “I had a hunch it might be important, but I couldn’t find out what it was. It has been knocking about the house, and my wife wanted me to throw it out. Then recently I was looking on the internet and discovered what it was.”

One side of the medal, still with its original ribbon, shows soccer players taking part in a match. On the other, there is an inscription that reads, “Il torneo Internazionale di Football Indetto Dalla Stampa Sportiva, Torina, Aprile 1909.”

Steven Moore, of the Newcastle auctioneers Anderson and Garland, which will sell the medal Sept. 13, said, “It is an amazing find. This is one of the rarest [soccer] medals in the world.”

He added, “They were an amateur team of miners, and it was quite an extraordinary story. Two years later, they beat mighty Juventus 6-1 in the final and won it again. It was a real case of David versus Goliath.”