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 Ball games derived very loosely from medieval mob football became popular at many of the large schools. By the 19th century, these games had significantly more complicated rules than the Ashbourne game but the rules were passed on through demonstration from one intake of boys to the next so they would change from year to year and be different at every school. There is a myth that the game of rugby was invented in 1824 when a boy called William Webb Ellis at Rugby School picked up the ball during a football game. That probably did happen but it would have only affected how the game was played at one school for a few years. As I have mentioned, rugby is more like mob football than modern soccer is and soccer wasn't formalised until many years after the William Webb Ellis event. Rugby School produced a set of rules for a football-like game in 1845. Cambridge University created a set of rules in 1848, which would be used mainly in schools and colleges in the South. In 1857, this club, Sheffield FC, was formed and produced another set of rules,which were used mainly by football clubs for working men in this area. In 1863, the Football Association was formed and combined the Cambridge and Sheffield rules to form association football, known as soccer for short. Some clubs objected to the FA rules and started to play by the Rugby rules instead, which is when rugby and soccer became regarded as separate games. The two main points of disaggreement were whether the ball could be handled and whether players were allowed to kick each other. The rules of both games have continued to evolve since then. The result of all that is that, since schools and such like aren't clubs in their own right, Sheffield FC is now regarded as the world's first football club. This isn't their original ground though. I'll be seeing the oldest surviving ground later. UTC Time: 12:00, Saturday 15 August 2015 Local Time: 13:00, Saturday 15 August 2015 Estimate of longitude: 1° 28' 40.62" W = -1.477950° Estimate of latitude: 53° 18' 33.80" N = 53.309390° Possible error on position estimate: 10 metres | |