Oct 26 2007
150 Years of Football in Sheffield
While some leagues would like you to believe that football history began when the late, great Max McGee fought off a hangover to catch the first touchdown pass in Super Bowl history, others know the story of football goes back much further than that. In the case of Sheffield, it goes back 150 years.
This week, Sheffield F.C. celebrated its 150th anniversary. The amateur club was founded on October 24, 1857, by a group of cricketers looking to keep fit during the winter. (Sound familiar, Melbourne Demons supporters?) Of course, this was a full six years before the Football Association rules were officially codified, so Sheffield F.C. had to write up its own rules. The original Sheffield Rules actually resembled Australian football a bit with its fair catches and shoulder charging.
Of course, not having a whole lot of competition, Sheffield F.C. mostly organized games within its membership, but it did its best to promote the Sheffield Rules among public schools throughout England. In fact, the Sheffield Rules proved to be more popular among spectators than the original FA Rules, which struggled to find an audience both inside and outside of London. Sheffield suggested several rules changes to the FA, but they weren’t all that receptive.
By the 1870s, though, with rugby football starting to encroach on everyone’s territory, the FA began working with Sheffield more, adopting several rules changes — little things like the corner kick and he header. By the end of that decade, London and Sheffield played football under one unified set of rules, which would go on to be the primary form of football played just about everywhere.
I remember hearing somewhere that the two greatest exports of the British Empire were 1.) Association football and 2.) the phrase “fuck off.”
Interestingly enough, Sheffield F.C. has remained a strictly amateur club for its century and a half of existence. It’s currently playing in the Unibond League First Division South, which is about seven levels down from the Premier League. Sheffield United, at their current pace, may be joining them any year now.
More Sheffield F.C. talk is at Two Hundred Percent and The Offside.
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So is Sheffield Rules the father of modern day Aussie Rules? What are the differences?
Do they have any similarities?
Sheffield Rules are similar in that they allowed free kicks after fair catches and such, but the Cambridge Rules would probably be the forefather to both Aussie Rules and Sheffield Rules.
IIRC the original FA laws also allowed for fair catches?
Anyway the fair catch is an obvious thing to get rid of once you aren’t trying for soccer/rugby compromise rules, ie, once you go for a pure kicking/dribbling game.