Oldest Football Clubs

If football hadn’t become an organised sport then it would just be twenty-two men kicking a pig’s bladder around in a field.

As it happens it not only became organised but became arguably the biggest sport in the world, watched by millions on an almost daily basis. It is now big business, worth billions of pounds and played throughout the world.

We’ve already had a look at the country’s most successful clubs, found out about the first ever games and goals scored and talked about the oldest stadiums. But which teams were the first to cotton on to the fact that people would like to watch those twenty-two men kicking a pig’s bladder around a field?

The table below shows the oldest teams in the world we list on this site, below this you can find the oldest clubs in England.  It is important to note that the oldest football team in England is Sheffield FC formed in 1857 and nearby Hallam FC formed in 1860.  We do not list these on the site as they play in lower leagues but they were critical clubs in the formation of football as we know it today.  Sheffield FC were responsible for the formation of the Sheffield rules, many of which were adopted into FA rules we know today – although Sheffield FC did not adopt them until 1878.

List Of The Oldest Football Teams

Oldest Clubs in England

Here’s a look at the eleven oldest football clubs in England that are still in existence.

It’s eleven rather than ten because many of them were formed in the same year as each other, which also means they’re not in an exact order…

Oldest Clubs No Longer In Existence

A quick look around the site will lead you to several articles of interest when it comes to the early days of football. You can read about the founding members of the football league, for example. There’s also an in-depth piece about the history of football in general. Perhaps the most relevant, however, is the piece about the first ever football team, which explains about how football was formed out of the sport of rugby.

That article is relevant because whether a team was ever a ‘football team’ is up for some debate. What we do know is that numerous teams are no longer in existence but at one point or another were considered to be ‘football clubs’. An example of this would be The Foot-Ball Club from Edinburgh, which existed from 1824-1841. The club rules said that ‘tripping’ was forbidden but you could ‘hold or pick up’ the ball, so the extend to which it was a football club is debatable.

The Great Leicestershire Cricket and Football Club existed back in 1840 but is no longer around. Similarly The Body-Guard Club of Rochdale and The Fear-noughts Club were documented as having played a game against each other in Lancashire in 1848. The Surrey Football Club was formed in 1849 and they came up with the first set of rules that weren’t from a school setting.

Football clubs a come and go and will continue to do so. Teams enter into administration or are moved to entirely different areas, such as when Wimbledon Football Club became the MK Dons. The important thing is that the love of the sport exhibited by supporters throughout the world means that every time one does disappear another one pops up in its place, such as AFC Wimbledon. Some clubs have been in existence since as long ago as 1862, surviving two World Wars and any number of other threats. Long may the continue to thrive.