Gentleman’s game to beautiful game

THE story of organised football in Britain and ultimately the world, begins,oddly enough, with cricket. On April 30 1855, Bramall Lane, Sheffield’s newest cricket ground and home of the recently-formed Sheffield United Cricket Club, opened its gates. Among the new club’s members were two gentleman cricketers, William Prest and Nathaniel Creswick, both Sheffield businessmen. It occurred to them that football as an organised winter game might be the ideal solution to ward off the aches and pains of early cricket season rustiness and subsequently they resolved to organise a football club.

By October 24, 1857 Sheffield Football Club had been born. Sheffield FC found temporary headquarters in a potting shed and greenhouse owned by Asline Ward and situated at Park House at the bottom of East Bank Road. The first job of the new Sheffield FC committee, following time-honoured cricketing practice, and as they had learned at school, was to draw up its own set of laws for the game, which they distilled from a collection of public schools and universities across the country. In the beginning there were no opposing teams to play against so in the early days club members organised teams such as the first half of the alphabet (A-M) against the rest, professional occupations versus the others, married men versus married. Soon, other Sheffield teams had come into being, beginning  with Hallam Football Club in 1860.

The world’s first inter-club match took place on Boxing Day of that year with Sheffield FC beating the newly-formed Hallam FC 2-0. Football started to spread and by 1862 there were 15 clubs in and around Sheffield.

The following year, the first association of clubs was set up. Sheffield FC were instrumental in the formation of the Football Association, of which they are founder members and remain so to this day. Sheffield FC pioneered many  innovations in football. Heading was unheard of in the south of England until 1875.

When Sheffield travelled to the Oval to play London, the sight of the northern-based players butting the ball reduced London’s players and fans to fits of hysterics. In those days, the crossbar was just a length of rope strung between the uprights.

The Sheffield Laws introduced, for the first time, the notion of a solid crossbar. Other innovations included the first use of corner kicks, free kicks for fouls, throw-ins
and the first ever floodlit match