Oldest football clubs

Newspaper articles describing the game between the Body-guard Club and the Fear-nought Club, held on Christmas Day 1841

While the first clubs emerged in Britain, possibly as early as the fifteenth century, these are poorly-documented and defunct. For example, the records of the Brewers' Company of London between 1421 and 1423 mention the hiring out of their hall "by the "football players" for "20 pence", under the heading "Trades and Fraternities".[1] The listing of football players as a "fraternity" or a group of players meeting socially under this identity is the earliest allusion to what might be considered a football club.[2] Other early sporting bodies dedicated to playing football include "The Gymnastic Society" of London which met regularly during the second half of the eighteenth century to pursue two sports: football and wrestling[3] The club played its matches – for example between London-based natives of Cumberland and Westmorland – at the Kennington Common from well before 1789 until about 1800.

The Foot-Ball Club (active 1824–41) of Edinburgh, Scotland, is the first documented club dedicated to football, and the first to describe itself as a football club.[4] The only surviving club rules forbade tripping, but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of the ball.[5] Other documents describe a game involving 39 players and "such kicking of shins and such tumbling".

Wikisource has original text related to this article: Rules of Surrey Football Club (1849)

Other early clubs include the Great Leicestershire Cricket and Football Club present in 1840.[6]

On Christmas Day 1841, an early documented match between two self-described "football clubs" took place. The Body-guard Club (of Rochdale) lost to the Fear-nought Club after using an ineligible player as a substitute.[7][8][9] The complete rules used in this game are unknown, but they specified twelve players on each side,[8] with each team providing its own umpire, and the game being started by the firing of a pistol.[9]

A club for playing "cricket, quoits and football" was established in Newcastle on Tyne in or before 1848.[10] The Surrey Football Club was established in 1849 and published the first non-school football list of rules (which were probably based upon the eighteenth century Gymnastic Society cited above[11]). Windsor Home Park F.C. was in existence as early as 1854,[12] and would go on to compete in early editions of the FA Cup.[13]

Cambridge University Association Football Club has been described by the university as the oldest club now playing association football.[14][15] For example, : "Salopians formed a club of their own in the late 1830s/early 1840s but that was presumably absorbed by the Cambridge University Football Club that they were so influential in creating in 1846".[16] According to Charles Astor Bristed, in the early 1840s at Cambridge, there were games played between clubs from colleges and houses.[17] Football is documented as being played on the original club ground, Parkers Piece, as early as 1838.[18] The earliest existing evidence of the Cambridge University Football Club comes from "The Laws of the University Football Club" dated 1856, and held at Shrewsbury School.[15]

It has been claimed that the present-day Barnes Rugby Football Club, from Barnes in London, is a continuation of the nineteenth-century Barnes Football Club, and moreover that the latter club was formed in 1839 and is thus the oldest club to have played football for its entire history.[19] However, as of 2018, Barnes RFC's website claims only that the club was established in the 1920s, while alluding to "possibilities" that its history stretches back to 1862.[20] Hence it is argued, and supported by the Guinness Book of Records, that Guy's Hospital Football Club, founded by staff at Guy's Hospital in London in 1843, is the oldest club. While a rugby club still exists at Guy's Hospital, the connection between the present club and the one formed in 1843 is still disputed.[21]

The oldest "football" club of any code is the Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854[22] at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The club plays rugby union.

Sheffield F.C. (here pictured in 1857, the year of its foundation) is the oldest surviving association football club in the world

Sheffield F.C. in Sheffield, England, is the world's oldest surviving independent football club – that is, the oldest club not associated with an institution such as a school, hospital or university. It was founded in 1857.[23] Sheffield F.C. initially played Sheffield rules, a code of its own devising, although the club's rules influenced those of the England Football Association (FA (1863) including handball, free kicks, corners and throw ins. While the international governing body of association football, FIFA and the FA recognise Sheffield F.C. as the "world's oldest football club",[24] and the club joined the FA in 1863, it continued to use the Sheffield rules. Sheffield F.C. did not officially adopt association football until 1877.

The only survivor among the FA's founding clubs still playing association football is Civil Service F.C.[25] Six of the 18 founding members later adopted rugby exclusively.[26] Cray Wanderers F.C., originally of St Mary Cray and currently playing in Bromley, founded in 1860, is the oldest club now playing association football in Greater London.[27] The code played by Cray Wanderers in its earliest years is unknown.

Liverpool Football Club (not to be confused with Liverpool F.C. of the Premier League), later known as Liverpool St Helens F.C. were formed in 1857, which claims to be the oldest open rugby club in the world. The club adopted the Rugby Union rules in 1872, never playing association rules.

In India, some of the oldest clubs are Calcutta Football Club (founded in 1872, later merged with Calcutta Cricket Club to form Calcutta Cricket and Football Club), Sarada F.C., Aryan F.C. (1884), Sovabazar F.C. (1886), Mohun Bagan A.C. (1889), all of these clubs from Kolkata.[28]

The Danish Kjøbenhavns Boldklub is the oldest football club on continental Europe.[29] The club was formed in 1876 and association football was first played two years later.[30]

Foot Ball Club Spa was founded by the Hunter-Blair family of Blairquhan, Ayrshire, Scotland, and was in operation in 1863. The fourth Baronet took his family there in order to economise. [31]

The first football club in France was established in Paris in 1863 by English expatriates, as the following excerpt from a contemporary newspaper shows: "A number of English gentlemen living in Paris have lately organised a football club.... The football contests take place in the Bois de Boulogne, by permission of the authorities and surprise the French amazingly."[32]

Le Havre AC was founded as an athletics and rugby club in 1872, making it the oldest surviving football club registered in France and continental Europe.[33] They began playing association football on a regular basis in 1894. Technically AS Strasbourg could be considered the first French association football team, being established in 1890; they were however a German team at the time.

Dresden English Football Club was founded on 18 March 1874 and was the first association football club in Germany, and likely the first outside Great Britain. In 1874, over 70 members participated, primarily Englishmen working in Dresden, watched by hundreds of spectators. Another German club, 1860 Munich did not play football until 1899, although it has its origins in a gymnastics and fitness club formed in 1848 and reestablished in the year indicated by its name.

In Italy, Genoa C.F.C. is the oldest active football club: it was founded by Charles De Grave Sells, S. Green, George Blake, W. Rilley, George Dormer Fawcus, H.M. Sandys, E. De Thierry, Johnathan Summerhill sr., Johnathan Summerhill jr. and Sir Charles Alfred Payton in Genoa on 7 September 1893. However, Genoa C.F.C. is not the first Italian football club: this was Torino Football & Cricket Club (1887)[34] but its history has lasted only for 4 years. Founded by Edoardo Bosio (owner of Bosio & Caratsch, the earliest brewery in Italy), the team broke up in 1891. Older than Genoa and Torino is Associazione Sportiva Dilettantistica Fanfulla, founded in Lodi in 1873, but its football section was established only thirty-five years later, in 1908.

In Spain, Recreativo de Huelva is the oldest active football club: it was founded on 22 December 1889.

Although football variants have been played in North America since the 1820s, the claim of oldest continuous football club in North America is still a matter of debate.

Oneida Football Club of Boston, Massachusetts, established in 1862, was the first organised team to play any kind of football in the United States. The game played by the club, known as the "Boston game", was an informal local variant that predated the codification of rules for association or American football. The team, which consisted of graduates of Boston's elite preparatory schools, played on Boston Common from 1862 to 1865, during which time they reportedly never lost a game or even gave up a single point.[35][36]

In terms of gridiron football the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League can trace their roots back to the Hamilton Football Club (nicknamed the Tigers) which formed in 1869, then later merged with the Hamilton Wildcats in 1950 to form the current franchise. Their rivals to the north, the Toronto Argonauts, were founded four years later in 1873 and have a mostly unchanged franchise history. Both clubs began as rugby football clubs and only later adapted to the gridiron-style of play which would become known as Canadian football. The oldest continuous rugby club in North America which still plays rugby is the McGill University Rugby Football Club which was established in 1863, although their first recorded game was not until 1865.[37] The oldest independent (non-university) rugby club is the Westmount Rugby Club of Montreal, which formed in 1876.[38]

In 1869, Rutgers University and Princeton University competed in the first US intercollegiate football game. According to U.S. Soccer, the rules of this game resembled rugby and association football more closely than gridiron football.[39] Moreover, teams competing in intercollegiate championships are amateur teams rather than "clubs".

In the United States, gridiron-based variants of the game did not distinguish themselves from existing codes until 1871, when Harvard University began playing a variation known as the "Boston Game." This allowed a player to pick up the ball and run with it if he were chased and it quickly spread, with innovations added by Yale University student Walter Camp. The oldest existing non-university semiprofessional football club is the Watertown Red & Black, which was founded in 1896. The Bears, formed in Chicago in 1920, are the oldest team in the National Football League.

One of the first teams to have played "football" under the association rules in the US was Fall River Rovers, founded in 1884.[40]

Australian rules football club Melbourne of 1879. The club (established in 1859) is the oldest in its country and has competed in the AFL since its inception in 1897

In 1858 in Melbourne, Victoria, members of the Melbourne Cricket Club formed a loosely organised football team, and played against other local football enthusiasts over the winter and spring of that year. The Melbourne Football Club was officially founded the following year on 14 May, and three days later (May 17), four members codified the first laws of Australian rules football. The Geelong Football Club was formed shortly afterwards, and over the next decade, many more Australian rules football clubs were formed in Victoria. Melbourne and Geelong were founding members of the Australian Football League (AFL), making them the world's oldest football clubs that are now professional. In South Australia, the first team to be founded was the Port Adelaide Football Club, in 1870.

The Wellington Football Club based in Hataitai, Wellington is the oldest continuous rugby union club in New Zealand, having played the first rugby match in 1870. The honour of being the first organised association football club is likely to belong to Auckland's North Shore United (founded as Devonport in 1886). Two Dunedin-based clubs, Northern AFC and Wakari FC were officially founded in 1888, although it is possible that Northern had been playing as a team prior to this time.[41]

Argentine Rosario A.C. rugby union squad in 1884. This is supposed to be the oldest photo of a rugby team in the country

Buenos Aires Cricket & Rugby Club claims to be the oldest club still in existence in Argentina. According to the club's website, the club was founded before 8 December 1864 as a cricket institution.[42] The date of foundation has been recognised by the Buenos Aires Rugby Union.[43] It is however believed that the club was founded in 1831, with existing documentary evidence about a cricket match played by Buenos Aires that same year.[44][45] Nevertheless, the practise of any "football" code did not start until 1951 when the BACC merged with the Buenos Aires F.C. and rugby union was added.[42]

Club Atlético del Rosario was officially established in 1867 as a cricket institution. The club soon added association football, being the first club from Rosario playing in the Primera División, the top division of Argentina.[46] In rugby union, Rosario AC played the first inter-clubs match in the country on 28 June 1886, when the team faced Buenos Aires Football Club.[47][48]

Having been established in 1875, Club Mercedes is considered the oldest association football club still in existence in Argentina.[49][50] This places Mercedes above Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata[51] and Quilmes, both founded in 1887.

Oruro Royal was founded on 26 May 1896 by the English workers hired by the Bolivian Government to build the national railways, becoming the first Bolivian football squad.

In Brazil, São Paulo Railway Company and São Paulo Gaz Company were the first teams, both established in 1895.[52] Paissandu Atlético Clube was fouded on 15 August 1872, but only started to play association football in 1901. São Paulo Athletic Club was founded on 13 May 1888 by English immigrants, but only started to play association football in 1898.[53] Although association football is not practised any more, SPAC still hosts rugby union. The oldest independent club to have been in continuous and uninterrupted activity is S.C. Rio Grande, founded on July 1900 (a famous misconception is that the oldest one would be A.A. Ponte Preta, named after the neighbourhood of the same name in the city of Campinas where it was founded, but it was founded close to one month later, in August 1900.[54]

Santiago Wanderers was founded on 15 August 1892 by Irish community and was the first football club in Chile.

Lima Cricket and Football Club claims to be the oldest football-practicing club in Peru and the Americas, having been founded in 1859 by the city's British community.[55][56]

In Uruguay, the Montevideo Cricket Club, established in 1861, has however been ranked as the oldest rugby union club outside Europe by the World Rugby Museum of Twickenham,[57][58] although the first certain rugby match played by MVCC was in 1875.[59][60][61]