Home of football statistics and historyThe 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 were used to, could meet and play without argument. That having been done and settled, they were quite ready to disband and go home. Only the foresight of men like C.W. Alcock kept the F.A. in being.
The very first match to be played under the new “Football Association” rules came off on 9 January 1864 at Battersea Park, between the secretary’s team and a side chosen by the President of the F.A., teams which included the best-known footballers of the day. After the game the two parties, their supporters and well-wishers adjourned to the Grosvenor Hotel, Pimlico for a smoking concert. The toast of the evening was “Success to football irrespective of class or creed.”
Those sceptical of the chances of success for the new venture noted there was no great clamour of clubs seeking to join the Association, and very little evidence that clubs actually in membership were keen to adopt the rules of the game laid down for their use. Despite all the fuss attendant on the founding of the organisation, local rules prevailed everywhere. To the many hopeful of the aspirations of The Football Association disenchantment came early; the many more, doubtful of its usefulness, were not slow to see the enterprise as a damp squib.
All the Sheffield clubs showed interest, but continued to play football according to Sheffield rules. Though the best of the London clubs, Forest FC, immediately adopted the F.A. rules, Lincoln FC preferred its own laws. At Louth, in Lincolnshire, they decided they could only accept the London Rules (as they were called), after some modifications had been made.
A popular attitude was probably not better stated than by the writer to a newspaper in January 1864 calling himself ‘An old Boy’. Claiming that The Football Association was a failure, he said it lacked the authority which would come from the Public Schools. It had been foolish of the promoters to hold their inaugural meeting at a time when it was practically impossible for the representatives of the leading schools to be present. It was therefore presumptuous to ask all football clubs to take up membership. The only advantage he could see in a universal code of rules for football was in those cases where a match was arranged between clubs at a distance from each other. The rules of clubs in one’s own locality were generally known, and it was better for a match between neighbours to be played according to the rules of the host club with such modifications as may be desired and agreed; it was better that one of the teams should play under familiar customs than that both should have to endure a strange code.
Association football was being played in some quarters, however, and mainly in London. Notable clubs using the F.A. rules in 1865 were Barnes, Crystal Palace, Forest, Forest School, No Names Kilburn, Civil Service, and Wanderers; they may not have kept to the new rules in every match, but they played sufficient of it to keep the game alive in what was a difficult period for the F.A.
The new Laws of the Game made no provision for the numbers of players on each side, nor for the duration of play; these matters had to be agreed by the two captains concerned. Thus Barnes fielded only 9 men against 14 when they went to Penge to play Crystal Palace, and on the same day there was a 9-a-side match at Kilburn between No Names and Wanderers which lasted for one hour. Nobody minded. After all, it was only a game.
The first football match under FA rules
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’s Team: A Pember, CW Alcock, HW Chambers, AM Tebbut, Gray, Drew, RG Graham, WJ Cutbill, A Morten, J Turner, Morris, Renshaw, Leuchers, A Scott
Secretary’s Team: EC Morley, JF Alcock, CM Tebbut, A Lloyd, C Hewitt, GT Wawn, JP Phillips, Innes, McCalmont, Needham, H Baker, AJ Baker, Hughes, Jackson
1864-65 – The first game involving a current member of the Football League
The Football Association Laws of 1863 regulated the game in and around London but in the provinces clubs continued to follow their local rules for some time. The most important of these regional variants was at Sheffield. It was not until 1877 that Sheffield adopted the FA Laws which, at the same time, absorbed certain clauses from the Sheffield code.
There are some similarities in the formation of the Sheffield club, the oldest club in the world, and Notts County, the oldest Football League club. Both began with impromptu, informal kickabouts by a group of young men of the professional class and only after a couple of years was the club formally founded. Sheffield was formed on October 24, 1857, after informal play since 1855, and Notts County on December 7, 1864 after informal play since 1862. The two clubs first met in the 1864-65 season, the first important match on record played by a current member of the Football League.
January 2, 1865 at the Meadows Cricket Ground, Nottingham
Notts County 0 Sheffield 1 (James Wild, 40 mins)
Notts County: J Patterson (captain), T Elliott, W Elliott, R Fountain, H Moody, R Daft, CF Daft, G Parr, John Parr, H Parr, JW Thackeray, JB Gibson, EB Steegman, A Scrimshaw, W Goddard, H Simons, JS Wright, W Wright
Sheffield: N Creswick, AJ Creswick, HW Chambers, AA Dixon, John Shaw, JC Shaw, B Shepherd, C Appleton, AM Wild, F Knowles, W Turton, A Wrightman, James Wild, R Favell, H Cadman, GH Hawkesley, A Earnshaw, W. Chesterman
The Nottingham Review of January 6, 1865 reported that the match “attracted a good number of spectators. The Notts Club has only just been formed while the Sheffield one is of long standing”.
1865-66 Nottingham Forest v Notts County
The Nottingham Forest club was formed this season and met Notts County in home and away fixtures – the oldest unbroken sequence between two clubs now in the Football League. During this season the Sheffield club met a London representative team but because of the differences over rules no further matches took place until 1871.
1867-68
The Sheffield Football Association was formed in 1867 while in Glasgow the Queen’s Park club was formed on July 9 – Scotland’s first soccer club.
In London, the Football Association organised two inter-county games which proved highly successful although it was some years before such matches became a regular feature of the game.
November 2 at Battersea Park, London
Middlesex 0 Surrey and Kent 0
The match had been arranged to take place at Beaufort House, Battersea, but Lord Ranelagh and the secretary of the Amateur Athletic Club, who had let the ground for the match, had a disagreement. So, at the last minute, it had to be switched, “compelled to seek refuge in the wilds of Battersea Park” says Bell’s Life in London. It adds: “The ground was in a most objectionable state and totally unfit for fooball purposes, and the grass, which was several inches long and extremely thick, effectually prevented all attempts at dribbling, or any exhibition of the quick play which we might have expected from the reputation of many of the players engaged in this contest.”
RM Thornton replaced CJ Thornton who arrived late because of the change of ground, and JK Barnes replaced WB Money who was detained at Cambridge because of an accident.
January 25 at West London Running Grounds, Brompton
Surrey 0 Kent 0