Notts v Sheffield 1865

[BCnotts18]

Found this "anecdote" on Facebook about a match notts played against Sheffield FC in 1865.

The anecdote itself is pretty interesting but i looked into the comments and guy who wrote it seems to think we we're formed in 1864 and the club between 1862 and 1864 was 'Milton' or something along those lines.

[BCnotts18]

Found this "anecdote" on Facebook about a match notts played against Sheffield FC in 1865.

The anecdote itself is pretty interesting but i looked into the comments and guy who wrote it seems to think we we're formed in 1864 and the club between 1862 and 1864 was 'Milton' or something along those lines.

Forgot to actually add the link...

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/pwjeqjAiChjDcbkH/

[carnthepies]

Our foundation date is open to question and does depend a bit of what you consider the most important factor (i.e. is it when the club legally started or is it when the founding members started practicing football together).

The report that's sometimes taken as the one reporting our formation from the Nottingham Guardian in 1862 is definitely a mistake. It is a report on Milton Football Club in Sheffield, how it came into the Nottingham press and how Milton came to be mixed up with Nottingham is anyone's guess, but the report does definitely say Milton.

Notts County's origins come from a group of players who played football together in the Park area of Nottingham. This verified by Richard Daft (a founding member) and C.L. Rothera (an early secretary of the club) and in a couple of very early histories of football. This was all on a very informal basis (Rothera said that there were no rules). The club was properly established in December 1864 as the guy on Facebook says, but the early members seemed to regard the club's formation as coming before this and I don't believe there's any early source which says 1864 was the year we started.

[upthemaggies]

Our foundation date is open to question and does depend a bit of what you consider the most important factor (i.e. is it when the club legally started or is it when the founding members started practicing football together).

The report that's sometimes taken as the one reporting our formation from the Nottingham Guardian in 1862 is definitely a mistake. It is a report on Milton Football Club in Sheffield, how it came into the Nottingham press and how Milton came to be mixed up with Nottingham is anyone's guess, but the report does definitely say Milton.

Notts County's origins come from a group of players who played football together in the Park area of Nottingham. This verified by Richard Daft (a founding member) and C.L. Rothera (an early secretary of the club) and in a couple of very early histories of football. This was all on a very informal basis (Rothera said that there were no rules). The club was properly established in December 1864 as the guy on Facebook says, but the early members seemed to regard the club's formation as coming before this and I don't believe there's any early source which says 1864 was the year we started.

When the club celebrated it's 50th anniversary in 1912 some of the original players from 1862 were involved in the banquet and they would have known better than anybody else what the process and timeline was.
We have to remember that in 1862 the notion of what a football club was and what its' objectives should be were very different to 10/20/30 years or more later when most of the clubs we know today came into being. There was no need for Notts to do the official paperwork whilst they were still only playing among themselves.
I'm not on Facebook so can't read the whole thread, but Notts played Trent Valley at the Meadows Cricket Ground a day after it was all formerly set out on paper in 1864. So whilst they may well have had a match with Sheffield in mind, the Trent Valley fixture seems to be what stirred them into action in terms of an official formation on that particular date of 7th December 1864.

[BCnotts18]

Thank you both for the extra info. I guess if it was 1862 or 1864 doesn't actually matter if Crystal Palace continue along the lines that they were formed in 1861 though.

[upthemaggies]

Whilst we're on the subject of ancient history, it's 100 years ago this year that the club got its' first telephone installed.

This November will be the 100th anniversary of arguably the clubs' greatest month of all time, they beat Manchester City 2-0 on 1st November 1924 to go into 1st place in the top flight and held the position until December whilst not conceding a goal in 5 league matches which included a win at Arsenal (Donald Cock scoring the only goal). Fword meanwhile were in the relegation zone.

[Pie-eyed&legless]

Thank you both for the extra info. I guess if it was 1862 or 1864 doesn't actually matter if Crystal Palace continue along the lines that they were formed in 1861 though.

But are we not recognised as being the ‘Oldest Professional’ football club - so did Notts turn professional?

[upthemaggies]

But are we not recognised as being the ‘Oldest Professional’ football club - so did Notts turn professional?

Didn't turn professional until 1885.

[Bushwacka]

But are we not recognised as being the ‘Oldest Professional’ football club - so did Notts turn professional?

We are the oldest club in the world amongst those that are currently professional.

We only adopted the 'professional' bit when we lost our league status in 2019 afaik. Maybe 'world's oldest league club' doesn't apply if league status is broken.

Should Sheffield FC become professional/get into the EFL, we'll have nowt!

[upthemaggies]

We were the oldest of the founder league members and that should be more than enough to claim the title "World's oldest league club".

The fact that we dropped into tier 5 for four seasons (still playing in the league pyramid) should have no bearing on that title whatsoever when all but one of the other 11 founder members have also exited the Football League at some point (Preston being the exception). On what basis would the Premier League still be valid in terms of continuity but the National League not? Nobody has ever explained that one to me.