Oldest football clubs: Difference between revisions
The world’s oldest clubs playing various codes of football
The oldest football clubs trace their origins to the mid-19th century, a period when football evolved from being a casual pastime to an organised mainstream sport.
The identity of the oldest football clubs in the world, or even in a particular country, is often disputed or claimed by several clubs, across several codes of football. The Foot-Ball Club of Edinburgh is thought to be the earliest recorded football club in the world, with records going back to 1824. Rugby clubs also referred to themselves, or continue to refer to themselves, as simply a “football club”, or as a “rugby football club”. “Club” has always meant an independent entity and, during the historical period in question, very few high school or university teams were independent of the educational institutions concerned. Consequently, school and university football teams were seldom referred to as “clubs”. That has always been the case, for example, in American football, which has always had ties to college sport in general. Conversely, however, the oldest still-existing “football club” with a well-documented, continuous history is Dublin University Football Club, a rugby union club founded in 1854 at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. There exists some record of Guy’s Hospital Football Club being founded in London in 1843, through an 1883 fixture card referring to Guy’s 40th season.[1]
Britain & Ireland[edit]
Defunct clubs[edit]
Newspaper articles describing the game between the Body-guard Club and the Fear-nought Club, held on Christmas Day 1841
While the first clubs emerged in Britain, possibly as early as the fifteenth century, these are poorly-documented and defunct. For example, the records of the Brewers’ Company of London between 1421 and 1423 mention the hiring out of their hall “by the “football players” for “20 pence”, under the heading “Trades and Fraternities”.[2] The listing of football players as a “fraternity” or a group of players meeting socially under this identity is the earliest allusion to what might be considered a football club.[3] Other early sporting bodies dedicated to playing football include “The Gymnastic Society” of London which met regularly during the second half of the eighteenth century to pursue two sports: football and wrestling.[4] The club played its matches – for example between London-based natives of Cumberland and Westmorland – at the Kennington Common from well before 1789 until about 1800.
The Foot-Ball Club (active 1824–41) of Edinburgh, Scotland, is the first documented club dedicated to football, and the first to describe itself as a football club.[5] The only surviving club rules forbade tripping, but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of the ball.[6] Other documents describe a game involving 39 players and “such kicking of shins and such tumbling”.
Other early clubs include the Great Leicestershire Cricket and Football Club present in 1840.[7]
On Christmas Day 1841, an early documented match between two self-described “football clubs” took place. The Body-guard Club (of Rochdale) lost to the Fear-nought Club after using an ineligible player as a substitute.[8][9][10] The complete rules used in this game are unknown, but they specified twelve players on each side,[9] with each team providing its own umpire, and the game being started by the firing of a pistol.[10]
A club for playing “cricket, quoits and football” was established in Newcastle on Tyne in or before 1848.[11] The Surrey Football Club was established in 1849 and published the first non-school football list of rules (which were probably based upon the eighteenth century Gymnastic Society cited above[12]). Windsor Home Park F.C. was in existence as early as 1854,[13] and would go on to compete in early editions of the FA Cup.[14]
Continuous clubs[edit]
Supported by the Guinness Book of Records, and founded by staff at Guy’s Hospital in London in 1843, the Guy’s, Kings and St Thomas’ RFC would be the oldest “football” club of any code. Nevertheless, the connection between the present club and the original “Guy’s Hospital” formed in 1843 is still disputed,[15] alleging that the present club is a modern amalgam of three formerly distinct hospital rugby clubs, starting with the Guy’s Hospital and St Thomas’ Hospital teams which were the first to merge following the union of their respective Medical Departments. The last department to merge was the King’s College Hospital in 1999, although its club (founded in 1869) remained as a separate institution.
As the Guy’s, Kings and St Thomas’ RFC status is still disputed, other sources state that the Dublin University Football Club (DUFC), founded in 1854,[16] at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, would be the oldest “football” club. DUFC plays to the rugby union rules.
In Northern Ireland, the oldest football club is North of Ireland F.C.,…
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