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1857 - the beginning of a world-wide passion
Sheffield Football Club is
The Oldest Football Club In The World being formed on 24th October
1857. Thus the City of Sheffield can lay claim to being the birthplace
of modern football. The two men responsible were Nathanial Creswick,
a solicitor and chairman of a sliver-plate company, and William Prest,
a wine merchant.
Football in varying simple and basic forms had existed in England even in the eighteenth century with records showing games between representative teams from Norton and Sheffield in 1793. Members of the fencing club and gymnasium in Clarkehouse Road were also playing football from about 1852. However, in the winter of 1854, the Sheffield Cricket Club and other interested parties held a meeting in the Adelphi Hotel, in Arundel Street, to hear proposals regarding a new ground. The site was a plot of land by Bramall Lane. The club was granted a 99 year lease. In May 1857, Prest and his close friend Nathanial Creswick, were discussing football, and more specifically the need for organised sport during the winter. With this in mind Sheffield Football Club was born. By October 24th 1857 the officers of the new football club had been appointed. Up until this point, football had been played under laws used by the various public schools and Cambridge University. Following a study of these laws, the Sheffield Football Club Committee laid down its own code in a succinct set of laws whilst setting up temporary headquarters in a potting shed and greenhouse owned by Asline Ward and situated at Park House at the bottom of East Bank Road. |
