page_title: Sheffield F.C.
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Sheffield F.C. / History
caption_attribution_description: Sheffield FC's friendly match against Inter at Bramall Lane, staged to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the oldest football club in the world.
context_page_description: Sheffield Football Club is an English football club from Sheffield, South Yorkshire, although now based in Dronfield, Derbyshire. They currently compete in the Northern Premier League Division One South East. Founded in October 1857, the club was recognised by FIFA as the oldest existing club still playing football in the world. Sheffield FC initially played games under the Sheffield Rules and did not officially adopt the FA rules until 1878.
  The club competes in the Rules derby with near neighbours Hallam. In 2004 they were given the FIFA Order of Merit – an award given to only one other club: Real Madrid – and in 2007 they were inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame, to commemorate their 150th anniversary.
  On the pitch, the club's finest hour came in 1904 when they won the FA Amateur Cup, a competition conceived after a suggestion by Sheffield. They also finished as runners up of the FA Vase in 1977.
context_section_description: In 1855, members of a Sheffield cricket club organised informal kick-abouts without any official rules. Subsequently, two members, Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, formed the Sheffield Football Club.
  The inaugural meeting of the club took place on 24 October 1857 at Parkfield House in the suburb of Highfield. The original headquarters was a greenhouse on East Bank Road lent by Thomas Asline Ward, father of the first club president Frederick Ward, and the adjacent field was used as their first playing ground. Initially, Sheffield FC games were played among club members themselves and took the format of "Married v Singles" or "Professionals v the Rest".
  Creswick and Prest were responsible for drawing up the club's rules of play, which were decided upon at the club's AGM on 21 October 1858, and published the following year. They were referred to as the Sheffield Rules, and were the first detailed set of rules of football to be published by a football club (as opposed to a school or university). At the time, before the formation of the Football Association (FA), many different kinds of football were popular in England. For example, each of the various public schools played football according to their own individual rules, and these varied widely. The Sheffield Rules were later adopted by the Sheffield Football Association when it was formed in 1867.
  Sheffield's near neighbour, Hallam, was formed in 1860 and in the same year the two clubs first met each other in a local derby which is still contested today. By 1862 there were 15 clubs in the Sheffield area.
  They became members of The Football Association on 30 November 1863 but continued to use their own set of rules. On 2 January 1865, the club played its first fixture outside Sheffield against Nottingham, playing eighteen-a-side under Nottingham Rules.
  By this time the club had decided only to play teams outside Sheffield in order to seek a bigger challenge. On 31 March 1866, Sheffield played a "London" team under FA rules at Battersea Park. The game, played as an eleven aside, was won by London by 2 goals and four touches down to nil. However the matter of rules remained a problem with Sheffield clubs continuing to play by their own rules. A number of rule proposals by the club were rejected by the FA in February 1867 and the London Committee were reluctant to commit to further fixtures over Sheffield's refusal to play strictly to FA rules. Sheffield clubs finally adopted the FA rules in 1878.
  In 1873 the club entered the FA Cup for the first time, their first ever tie in the competition, against Shropshire Wanderers, being decided after a replay by a coin toss; the only time in the history of the competition that a tie has been decided in this way. They would reach the 4th Round of the competition in 1877–78 and 1879–80.
  Their reluctance to play against local clubs led to the formation of Thursday Wanderers in 1876, a team of players registered to Sheffield who wished to play in the Sheffield Challenge Cup. The Wanderers operated from 1876 to 1879, winning the cup in their final year.
  Sheffield's decline from the top echelon of football began with the introduction of professionalism in July 1885, with the amateurs of Sheffield failing to compete with professional teams, losing heavily that year to Aston Villa, Nottingham Forest and Notts County.  After the legalisation of professionalism, the staunchly amateur Sheffield suggested to the FA the creation of a cup exclusively for amateur clubs. The FA Amateur Cup was inaugurated in 1893 and Sheffield themselves won the competition in 1904.
  They joined their first league competition in 1889 when entering the Midland League, but left after just one season when they finished bottom of the table. They were also founder members of the original Yorkshire League in 1898, but again they spent just a single season in the competition.
  After the turn of the century, Sheffield competed mainly in local leagues. By 1925–26 they were competing in the Sheffield Association League.
  Fifty years after leaving the competition, the club rej
caption: Sheffield's 150th anniversary celebration match against Inter at Bramall Lane in 2007
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