Oldest Football Clubs

The history of the formation of the oldest football clubs is of interest to sport historians in tracing the origins of the modern codes of football from casual pastime to early organised competition and mainstream sport. Many early clubs did not use the word "football" in their name. Although the terms "football club" and "FC" are now strongly associated with association football (aka soccer in some countries), early rugby clubs also referred to themselves, or continue to refer to themselves, as simply a "football club", or as a "rugby football club". Similarly, most Australian rules football teams also refer to themselves as football clubs. The title of the world's oldest football club, or the oldest club in a particular country, is often disputed, or is claimed by several different clubs, across several different codes of football. The oldest football clubs with a well-documented, continuous history are Durham School Football Club, 1850 and the Dublin University Football Club, a rugby club founded in 1854 at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The Football Association and FIFA, the English and international governing bodies of association football, both officially recognise Sheffield F.C. to be the world's oldest association football club.