Founded in 1857, Sheffield Football Club are the world's oldest football team and the founding
fathers of the modern laws.
The game is often traced back to English public schools and to the wild, unruly contests between
villages.
In fact, Sheffield and Norton contested the oldest “match” on record, playing each
over three days and, while injuries were suffered on both sides, reports from the time cheerfully
recognised that the game finished without any fatalities.
Clearly, some codification was required.
Sheffield FC was the root of that change.
The club was founded by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, both local cricketers searching
for the means to stay fit during the winter months, and at the club's first Annual General
Meeting, in October of 1857, they presented the first edition of what would become known
as the Sheffield Rules.
Contained within that original draft were many staples of the contemporary game, including
free-kicks, throw-ins, and the contemporary version of the kick-off.
Originally, games were played internally between the club’s members, pitting players with
surnames beginning with letters from the first half of the alphabet against with those from
the second, but in December 1858 the club played their first external game, against
a side from a local army regiment.
A year later, Sheffield would play the world's first inter club game, beating the newly formed
Hallam FC 2-0.
By the time The Football Association was formed in 1863, Sheffield had devised and produced
several revisions of its rule book.
It sent four representatives to that inaugural meeting and, by December of that year, had
become an FA member itself.
The compromise between the Sheffield Rules and the FA's own regulations, from where the
offside rule originates, would become the foundation of Association Football as it exists
today.
For the next decade, two opposing football cultures existed in England: London and Sheffield.
While the latter’s influence started to decline by the early 1880s, placed under duress
by financial difficulties and the growing appetite for professionalism, and law making
primacy would eventually be held by the International Football Association Board - where it remains
to this day - the bulk of those formative laws were shaped in Sheffield by Creswick
and Prest.
In 2007, the club celebrated its 150th anniversary with friendlies against Inter Milan and Ajax
at Brammall Lane, with Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Bobby Charlton attending a commemorative
dinner and Brazilian icon Pele opening a special exhibition, containing an original, handwritten
copy of the Sheffield Rules.
The present day finds the team in the Northern Premier League, the fifteenth tier of the
game, and playing their home games in Dronfield, six miles outside of Sheffield.
Nevertheless, the club retains a determination to serve its original purpose and remains
fiercely proud of its amateur status.
As well as competing in domestic league and cup fixtures, it also maintains a range of
local fitness, educational and social initiatives, both in the Sheffield community and outside,
and surrounding community and regularly plays exhibition games under the original Rules.
(Matt)
The club has been attempting a return to its original home, at Olive Grove, for some time.
Originally, it had been hoped that England’s bid for the 2018 World Cup would free funding
and grants which would enable the construction of a new 10,000 capacity ground.
Unfortunately, FIFA awarded the tournament to Russia.
However, In 2015 the club, under current chairman Richard Tims, began a crowdfunding initiative
to secure the move.
Having been granted a free land lease by Sheffield council, the ambition now is to build a new
ground and to develop a new history centre and museum which properly represents the past,
is a fitting home for the game’s heritage, and which would also place the club within
reach of far superior transport links and close to Sheffield city centre.