The Foot-Ball Club may be the earliest known football club in the world.
The records are part of the papers of John Hope deposited in the NAS (NAS ref. GD253). In 1824 Hope, then a 17 year old trainee lawyer, organised a season of games for the Foot-Ball Club he had formed in Edinburgh. During the first recorded season the members met on Saturday afternoons to play a form of football.
This was not football in its modern form. The clubs’ games probably resembled the rough and tumble of traditional ball games played in many places. A letter of 1825 (NAS ref. GD253/183/14/12) refers to a game involving 39 players, and ‘such kicking of shins and such tumbling’.
Sticks marked the goals. The only surviving club rules (NAS ref. GD253/183/7/3) forbade tripping, but allowed pushing and holding and the lifting of the ball. A ‘chairman’ seems to have acted as a referee.
Their first known ground was the park on the Dalry estate in the city’s south-west suburbs. Hope had been born in Dalry House in 1807, the son of James Hope WS. In 1828 John Hope followed his father into the Society of Writers to His Majesty’s Signet.
The club was dominated by young lawyers and other professionals, and the sons of the Edinburgh legal fraternity and the landed gentry. Almost all of them lived in the New Town of Edinburgh. Starting with 61 members, the club grew to 85 members in 1826-7 season.
The subscription began at 1s. 6d., which paid for the hire of the park, the equipment and a boy, who was probably responsible for blowing up the football.
The most frequently purchased items were the bladders, which evidently frequently burst, and covers for the ball. Later, as the park rent increased, the subscription rose to 6s.
In 1831 they moved to Greenhill parks in Bruntsfield, where they played one of their short summer seasons, which usually attracted fewer members. For the season they played from 26th November 1831 to 1st July 1832. In 1839-40 the club was meeting ‘at present in Grove Park west of Gardeners Crescent’.
The last item (NAS ref. GD253/183/6/13), dated February 1841 is an enquiry concerning temporary membership, which shows the club was still active. What happened thereafter is not clear, because there are no further records.
The papers of the Foot-Ball Club (NAS ref. GD253/183/1-7) can be viewed in the Historical Search Room at General Register House.
World's oldest football club back on pitch
THE world's oldest football club is set to play its first match after reforming last year.
The Foot Ball Club of Edinburgh, established in 1824 by student lawyer John Hope, has been resurrected by 27-year-old Kenny Cameron.
The club will officially get the ball rolling in May when a team plays the McCrae's Battalion Trust at Tynecastle.
Organisers recently staged an open training session – the type the very first club became famous for a century and a half ago.
Mr Cameron said: "We had the club's first Saturday Club in around 150 years on Saturday there. We have the first 20 new members we needed and we'll play our first match in May in a charity game for the Forth 1 Help a Child Appeal. We are playing for the PMR Leisure Cup.
"The game is against the McCrae's Battalion Trust, which was set up to raise awareness of those who signed up to the battalion in the First World War.
"It was made famous as it was the one into which the entire Hearts first team enlisted. They were arguably the best team in Britain at the time.
"It's a great Edinburgh story and is a fitting first game for the world's first football club."
Source: Edinburgh Evening News [3], Wednesday, 9th April, 2008
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