Hallam Football Club History
IT ALL STARTED HERE
In 1804 the Landlord of the Plough Inn on Sandygate Road in the west of Sheffield agreed to have one of his fields used for Cricket Matches and so The Hallam Cricket Club was formed.
The club was so successful that by the 1850s it had some 300 members, many being familiar with team football as played by Sheffield Club which was founded as the Worlds first in 1857.
Prior to 1857 of course balls had been kicked around in many parts of the world and various games that came close to approximating what we would recognise as Football had been enjoyed to varying degrees of success but it wasn’t until 1857 when a definitive set of rules and a club constitution allowing teams within a club to play organised matches that modern Football took hold.
THE WORLDS FIRST INTERCLUB ENCOUNTER
However Sheffield Club was exclusive and the Cricketers of Hallam wanted a winter sport that was more open in its outlook, so in 1860 the Hallam Football Club was founded which makes the Sandygate ground the Oldest Football Ground in the World and the site of the Worlds first interclub football match played out between Hallam FC and Sheffield FC on Boxing Day the same year. The match was documented by a published advertisement in The Sheffield & Rotherham Independent Newspaper therefore confirming Hallam as the Worlds second oldest club.
Within no time at all there were over 20 football clubs in the Sheffield area all playing to “Sheffield Rules” and the Hallam Football Clubs founder and captain, John Charles Shaw soon became President of the Sheffield Football Association which organised matches locally.
THE WORLDS FIRST TOURNAMENT
In 1867, the year Sheffield Wednesday were established the Worlds first football tournament was organised and sponsored by local Theatre owner Thomas Youdan.
The sponsor had organised a competition for the design of the “cup” and paid a £2.00 prize for the winning design (equivalent to £170 in 2009) but the cup wasn’t manufactured in time for the tournament so The Worlds First Football Trophy was an off the shelf silver Claret Jug engraved for the occasion.
After an early knock out round The Final was a round robin competition between Hallam, Mackenzie and Norfolk clubs who each played each other and in which Norfolk were the runners up and Hallam FC were the winners, making the club the holders of the Worlds first Football Trophy – think of that! Before the FA, European and World Cups were even thought of - Hallam FC won the Youdan Trophy!
Shortly after the tournament the trophy went missing only to reappear 130 years later in Scotland where an antique collector noticed the engraving and contacted the club who paid £2,000 for the return of what in footballing terms must be a priceless piece of the games history.
FOOTBALL RULES BECOME OK
With the help and support of Sheffield FC who wrote the Sheffield Rules and The Sheffield Football Association the Football Association of London was formed. The London Association initially played by their own rules which proved to be unpopular with both players and onlookers and the input of Sheffield in developing the Capital’s code was essential in popularising the game in London; however the rules in Sheffield and London still differed and Hallam’s John Shaw was directly instrumental with Charles Adcock of the London Association in the formulation of rules that could be accepted nationally. Both gentlemen being the respective captains of the first all Sheffield verses London match in 1871 when the new combined rules were first used.
THE NOBLE AMATEURS
One such was Billy Mosforth (at 5’4” known as the Little Wonder) who in 1878 was an England International and a member of both Hallam Cricket and Football Clubs. Billy played for England 9 times, and became a member of the Zulus touring side that played to raise funds for families of soldiers killed in the Zulu Wars. He was one of the players who pushed against the English preference for the noble amateur changing clubs often to gain professional status and therefore payment. He played for Sheffield Albion and Sheffield Wednesday but moved to Sheffield Rovers who intended to become the areas first professional club until The Wednesday agreed to turn professional and he returned to the fold scoring the first goal at the clubs then new Olive Grove ground. Much later, when Sheffield United was founded in 1889 he changed camps again making him the first player to turn out for both of Sheffield’s professional outfits.
Hallam FC didn’t feel it was in the clubs interest to rush toward professionalism and like Sheffield FC have remained an amateur club for 150 years. In today’s mind set of multi million pound players and mega stadia it may seem strange but as late as the 1950s amateur leagues were still held in as high a regard as most of the smaller professional clubs; players often moving between professional and amateur clubs or vice versa and amateur clubs often pulling in crowds bigger than their lower division professional counterparts.
BE A PART OF THE TRADITION
This brief history of the club is only intended to give a flavour of a football club that we and supporters all over the World hold as an example of the sports roots and how the game should be played.
We are very grateful to Mr John Steele the clubs official historian and long term supporter for his assistance with this tip of the iceberg summary and would recommend you read his extensively researched and full History of Hallam FC first written in the 1980s. A history which John is currently updating for the 150th Anniversary year of 2010 and the 150th anniversary “Sheffield Derby” between Hallam FC & Sheffield FC on Boxing Day 2010.
