AuthorJeffEyesRimmer Welcome to Football Outcasts, we are hoping that this article will be the first of a regular and enjoyed feature on our page talking about various different clubs around the world. We will aim to bring articles about less heard about teams, cult teams, local sides and generally teams that we have always found interesting and entertaining. In the future we will be taking suggestions on what teams you would like to read about, so look out on social media pages for that and we hope to hear from you guys. But for the first article where to begin? Well we thought that we should start at the beginning, with the oldest club in the world – Sheffield F.C. Not be confused with the two major professional clubs also based in the steel city, Sheffield FC are an amateur club and play in the Northern Premier League Division One South. Not remarkable but Sheffield F.C are officially recognised by FIFA as the oldest football club in the world and have been given the FIFA Order of Merit for services to football. That is remarkable; the only other team to receive the honour is Real Madrid, quite the illustrious company I think you would agree.
The club was founded in 1857 by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest. The initial club games were played between married vs single players but Creswick and Prest were responsible for drafting up a set of rules that the club would play by. At the time each club and school played their own version of rules and no standardised version was used. Teams would just agree upon the rules when they played each other. Kind of like when I was a kid and we decided whether to play sweeper keeper or offside rules, we all had our own unique rules when we were younger. The rules that Creswick and Prest devised were called the ‘Sheffield rules’, naturally, and were adopted predominantly in the north of England. With the formation of the Football Association of England a number of Sheffield rules were incorporated into a main set of rules and over time added and elaborated. The Sheffield rules can be credited with introducing concepts to the game like corners, throw ins, free kicks for fouls and removing the picking up the ball rule, which resulted in heading of the ball. I can’t imagine the game without those concepts really and a little more in depth than ‘sweeper keeper’. As well as creating some of the concepts we still use today, the aim of Sheffield FC was to create a club of integrity, respect and based on community values. Something that the rest of the professional football world could learn from, I’m looking at you FIFA. I think this standpoint also goes someway to explaining why the club decided to remain amateur when, during this early period, other football teams were becoming professional. To this day they remain an amateur club. There were ongoing issues with Sheffield rules and the rules adopted by the FA and ongoing disputes continued into the 1870s. However, the club entered the FA Cup in 1873 for the first time and the clubs first game, against Shropshire Wanderers, was decided by a coin toss after replay. This was the first and only time a coin toss has decided a FA Cup tie. However, in remaining amateur during this period while teams within England turned professional were to result in the decline of the club, they simply couldn’t compete with the new professional game. They fluttered in and out of various leagues, including being a founding member of the Yorkshire League in 1898 but quickly left that league only to return 50 years later after a time in the Sheffield Association League. During the 1960s and 70s the club flittered between the various divisions with various degrees of success within the Yorkshire League. They fell to a low of 10th in the third division in 1974 before rising again to win the division two title in 1976. In 1981 the Yorkshire League merged with the Midland League and became the Northern Counties East League. Sheffield FC was placed within the Division One south portion of this new competition before it was again restructured in 1989. The club subsequently won the new league in 1989 but the following year was relegated due to them not having floodlights. Sometimes bureaucracy is daft isn’t it? They returned to division one in 1990 and remained there for 15years wining a few amateur cups along the way. In 2007 the club had its 150th birthday, which was celebrated with a match at their neighbour’s home ground, Brammel Lane (Sheffield Utd) against Inter Milan. Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter attended the Inter match and Pele introduced the teams. Around 30,000 people attend the historical game, which Inter won 5-2 in the end. Liverpool supporters would note that one Mario Balotelli played in that game, surprise though, he scored two goals. The club has moved home quite a bit over its 150 year lifecycle, with them called home to no less than 8x grounds. Finally in 2001 the club bought the Coach and Horses Ground in Dronfield, the grounds capacity is just over 2000 with 250 seats. I think up and down fortunes is the best way to describe Sheffield FC as a club but every football fan everywhere in the world should be thankful the club came to be, without them and their founders who knows what version of football we would be watching today. No corners anyone? |
AuthorsJust Some Fans Writing About Football. Archives
June 2018
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