During Heritage week, I joined the end of a tour of Crosspool, the area of Sheffield where Hallam FC is situated. We then moved into the clubhouse to listen to some facts about ‘The Oldest Football Ground’ in the world.
Looking across the football pitch you see the cricket ground bordering the open side. The Sandygate Road cricket pitch dates back to 1804 a year before the ‘Battle of Trafalgar ‘ and like many emerging football teams Hallam FC were partly born from the cricket club in 1860.
The Sheffield Home of Football group are forging ahead to promote Sheffield’s football Heritage being the birth place of the oldest team in the world, the oldest ground, the first cup and competition, the publishers of many of the original rules and many more firsts.
I had arrived at Hallam via Sheffield Town Hall where three cabinets of items relating to the history of Sheffield were on display. ‘Home of Football Group’ now have enough to display many more cabinets as they move towards a permanent museum in the city. One item in a cabinet was one of their latest blue plaques that are being put up all over the city in conjunction with the council to identify football/social history places that pioneers, events or places frequented. There is now a trail of these shown on ‘Home of Football’ web site.
Interesting in the cabinet are two pictures of the women’s game in the early years of the sport.
Some unusual facts that came out of the Hallam talk were:-
Football shirts in the beginning were either in a block colour or hoops as a loom to make vertical stripes had not yet been invented.
Hallam’s famous pitch slope is 1 in 26 but FA rules will allow up to 1 in 40.
The Youdan Trophy, the first football cup in the world, was not a cup but a ‘Coffee Jug’ bought off the shelf, because the designed cup was not ready in time for the competition.
The football club and cricket club have only 67 years left on their lease.
The exhibition goes on at Sheffield Town Hall until the 2nd of October and pilgrims to see the Hallam ground are always welcome.
Look up sheffieldhomeoffootball.org for all of the many interesting programs and projects that are going on.
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