Early history of football

The Football Association and the first FA rules

This, then was the sequence of events that led to the forming of the Football Association, a turning point in the history of soccer. The following clubs sent representatives to the meeting at the Freemason's Tavern on October 26: Forest (later to become the Wanderers, ...

The men who gathered together to form the Football Association had one aim and one only:- to formulate a set of rules by which all footballers, no matter which of the many and varied codes they ...

1863-64

The first match ever played under Football Association rules was played on January 9 1863, at Battersea Park, London.

FA President's XIV 2 (CW Alcock 2)
FA Secretary's XIV 0

President: A Pember, CW Alcock, HW Chambers, AM Tebbut, Gray, Drew, RG Graham, WJ Cutbill, A Morten, J Turner, Morris, Renshaw, Leuchers, A Scott
Secretary: EC Morley, JF ...

1869-70

It becomes curiously apparent, when studying the state of football in this season, that The Football Association having provided a set of fixed and defined rules by which the game might be played ...