History
Organised football started in Sheffield in 1857 with the birth of Sheffield Football Club and the creation of Sheffield Rules. By the early 1860s there were over 15 clubs in the Sheffield area and they were the first to start inter-club games. This was done with no formal body in overall control with Sheffield Rules used by the majority of clubs.
In 1867 it was decided that an association was needed to organise the Youdan Cup, the world's first football tournament. By this time Sheffield F.C. had decided not to play local clubs in favour taking the game to other parts of the country. A total of twelve clubs took part in the tournament, which was won by Hallam. A second cup, the Cromwell Cup, was played the next year. It was only open to teams under two years old and was won by The Wednesday.
On 2 December 1871, played the first inter-association game with the London Association, beating them 3–1 at Bramall Lane. Despite losing the game, the London Association (now known as the F.A.) became the primary association which led to the national adoption of the London rules. However, the Sheffield Association continued to have some influence and on 17 February 1872 proposed Rule VII introducing the corner-kick to the Association Rules.
Over the next few years, matches against the Associations of Birmingham, Glasgow, North Wales, Manchester and Staffordshire were arranged. Other non-association friendlies were played notably against the Wanderers, the Swifts and the Royal Engineers.
The first annual competition, the Sheffield Association Challenge Cup, was introduced in the 1876–77 season. This was joined by the Wharncliffe Charity Cup two years later. Both were won by Wednesday, who had become the dominant force in local football, in their first year.
The creep of professionalism began in 1876 when Wednesday brought down James Lang from Glasgow. He was officially hired by the club but received a job with no formal duties from one of the members of the club board. The association subsequently had to deal with open professionalism when members of The Zulus received payment for matches. A number of players were banned, so many in fact that it led to the abandonment of the 1882 Sheffield Challenge Cup final. In 1885, professionalism was made legal but the Sheffield Association, led by Charles Clegg and William Pierce-Dix remained firm opponents of professionalism in football.
In 1877 a rival association given the name Sheffield New was established in protest of Sheffield FA's decision not to allow any club under two years old to become a member. It would later change its name to Hallamshire Football Association. This situation persisted until the end of the 1886–87 season when a merger of the two associations was negotiated by Charles Clegg who took charge of the new association with Pierce-Dix employed as secretary.
The clubs of the Sheffield F.A. of 1877 were Albion, Artillery and Hallamshire Rifles, Attercliffe, Brightside, Brincliffe, Broomhall, Crookes, Exchange, Exchange Brewery, Fir Vale, Gleadless, Hallam, Heeley, Kimberworth, Millhouses, Norfolk, Norfolk Works, Owlerton, Oxford, Parkwood Springs, Philadelphia, Rotherham, Sheffield, Surrey, Thursday Wanderers, Wednesday.
Read more about this topic: Sheffield And Hallamshire County Football Association
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... in America ... children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“Considered in its entirety, psychoanalysis won’t do. It’s an end product, moreover, like a dinosaur or a zeppelin; no better theory can ever be erected on its ruins, which will remain for ever one of the saddest and strangest of all landmarks in the history of twentieth-century thought.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)
“America is the only nation in history which miraculously has gone directly from barbarism to degeneration without the usual interval of civilization.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)