It was certainly the biggest ever, with 274 teams and 144 referees participating in 813 games in five days, bringing thousands of people to the capital.

“I was personally surprised we had so many teams this year because our previous experience is we don’t have as many teams in a World Cup year,” Reid said.

“There were a few people trying to get us to delay their games from the 8.30 kick-off [on Thursday] morning because I think people were a bit bleary-eyed, and similarly two days before that after watching semi-finals at 6 in the morning.”

The turnout showed that, in spite of the World Cup, the Kanga Cup has become an integral part of the football calendar for many clubs in Australia – and indeed the world – but Reid maintained the future cap would remain at about 300 teams.

Grounds are limited, and back-up fields are required in case of rain, although the mid-week showers didn’t require them to be used on this occasion, and Reid ruled out expanding the competition to the surrounding regions.

“I don’t think we’d want to do that – it’s a fairly unique tournament that’s been in Canberra for 23 out of 24 years.”

Next year will be the tournament’s 25th anniversary, and as soon as the Cup finished on Friday, Capital Football was looking ahead to 2015, with an economic impact report at the top of the agenda.

“The last time [one] was done was maybe 10 or 12 years ago – and previously it was estimated somewhere around $3million was brought into the ACT economy,” Reid said noting the tournament had tripled since then.

“Outside of Floriade and maybe Summernats, this is the next biggest event for Canberra, you don’t get anything bigger in terms of the tourism.”

A third of the teams are in the under-9s, 10s and 11s age divisions, which represents further opportunity for Canberra.

“They all bring parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles,” Reid said. “There’s a big family connection and they’re all additional tourists to the ones we actually count as part of the teams that come here.”

Many more family members made day trips from Sydney on Friday for the grand finals.

Local Capital Football development side Emerging United capped a dominant week with a 5-1 win over the Colo Cougars from Sydney in the under-14 girls cup.

The Monaro Panthers under-17 girls overturned their pool loss to Gwandalan Cobras with a 3-1 win to take out the cup.

Just one final went to extra time; the under-10 girls from the Northbridge Flames were victorious in a penalty shootout over the Brindabella Blues Little Divas.