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The history of the formation of the oldest football clubs is of interest to sport historians in tracing the origins of the modern codes of football from casual pastime to early organised competition and mainstream sport. The identity of the first or oldest football clubs in the world, or even in a particular country, is often disputed or claimed by several clubs, across several codes of football.
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Early rugby clubs also referred to themselves, or continue to refer to themselves, as simply a "football club", or as a "rugby football club". "Club" has always meant an independent entity and, during the historical period in question, very few high school or university teams were independent of the educational institutions concerned. Consequently, school and university football teams were seldom referred to as "clubs". That has always been the case, for example, in American football, which has always had ties to college sport in general. Conversely, however, the oldest still-existing "football club" with a well-documented, continuous history is Dublin University Football Club, a rugby union club founded in 1854 at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, although there exists some record of Guy's Hospital Football Club being founded in 1843.
Defunct clubs
While the first clubs emerged in Britain, possibly, as early as the fifteenth century, these are poorly-documented and defunct. For example, the records of the Brewers' Company of London between 1421 and 1423 mention the hiring out of their hall "by the "football players" for "20 pence", under the heading "Trades and Fraternities". The listing of football players as a "fraternity" or a group of players meeting socially under this identity is the earliest allusion to what might be considered a football club. Other early sporting bodies dedicated to playing football include "The Gymnastic Society" of London which met regularly during the second half of the eighteenth century to pursue two sports: football and wrestling The club played its matches – for example between London-based natives of Cumberland and Westmoreland – at the Kennington Common from well before 1789 until about 1800.
The Foot-Ball Club (active 1824–41) of Edinburgh, Scotland, is the first documented club dedicated to football, and the first to describe itself as a football club. The only surviving club rules forbade tripping, but allowed pushing and holding and the picking up of the ball. Other documents describe a game involving 39 players and "such kicking of shins and such tumbling".
Other early clubs include the Great Leicestershire Cricket and Football Club present in 1840. In 1841 two clubs are documented in a contemporary challenge to play "foot-ball" in Lancashire: "The Body-Guard club" (Rochdale) and the "Fear-noughts Club" A club for playing "cricket, quoits and football" was established in Newcastle on Tyne in or before 1848. The Surrey Football Club was established in 1849 and published the first non-school football list of rules (which were probably based upon the eighteenth century Gymnastic Society cited above)
Continuous clubs
Cambridge University Association Football Club has been described by the university as the oldest club now playing association football. For example, : "Salopians formed a club of their own in the late 1830s/early 1840s but that was presumably absorbed by the Cambridge University Football Club that they were so influential in creating in 1846". According to Charles Astor Bristed, in the early 1840s at Cambridge, there were games played between clubs from colleges and houses. Cambridge rules dates from 1848 and football is documented as being played on the original club ground, Parkers Piece, as early as 1838. The earliest existing evidence of the Cambridge University Football Club comes from "The Laws of the University Football Club" dated 1856, and held at Shrewsbury School.
It is claimed that the Barnes Club (later Barnes Rugby Football Club), from Barnes in London, was formed in 1839 and is the oldest club to have played football for its entire history. However, this has not been conclusively documented. Hence it is argued, and supported by the Guinness Book of Records, that Guy's Hospital Football Club, founded by staff at Guy's Hospital in London in 1843, is the oldest club. While a rugby club still exists at Guy's Hospital, the connection between the present club and the one formed in 1843 is still disputed.
The oldest football club with the best-documented, continuous history is the Dublin University Football Club, founded in 1854 at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. The club plays rugby union.
Sheffield F.C. in Sheffield, England, is the world's oldest independent football club – that is, the oldest club not associated with an institution such as a school, hospital or university. It was founded in 1857. Sheffield F.C. initially played Sheffield rules, a code of its own devising, although the club's rules influenced those of the England Football Association (FA (1863) including handball, free kicks, corners and throw ins. While the international governing body of association football, FIFA and the FA recognise Sheffield F.C. as the "world's oldest football club", and the club joined the FA in 1863, it continued to use the Sheffield rules. Sheffield F.C. did not officially adopt association football until 1877.
The only survivor among the FA's founding clubs is Civil Service F.C. Six of the 18 founding members later adopted rugby exclusively. Cray Wanderers F.C. of St Mary Cray, London, founded in 1860, is the oldest club now playing association football in Greater London. The code played by Cray wanderers in its earliest years is unknown.
Liverpool Football Club (not to be confused with Liverpool F.C. of the Premier League), later known as Liverpool St Helens F.C. were formed in 1857, which claims to be the oldest open rugby club in the world. The club adopted the Rugby Union rules in 1872, never playing association rules.
English club Notts County, which has existed informally from 1862, is the world's oldest fully professional association football club.
Australia
In 1858 in Melbourne, Victoria, members of the Melbourne Cricket Club formed a loosely organized football team, and played against other local football enthusiasts over the winter and spring of that year. The Melbourne Football Club was officially founded the following year on 17 May, and three days later, four members codified the first laws of Australian rules football. The Geelong Football Club was formed shortly afterwards, and over the next decade, many more Australian rules football clubs were formed in Victoria. Melbourne and Geelong were founding members of the Australian Football League (AFL), making them the world's oldest football clubs that are now professional.
South America
Having been established in 1875, Club Mercedes is considered the oldest association football club still in existence in Argentina. This places Mercedes above Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata and Quilmes, both established in 1887.
Buenos Aires Cricket & Rugby Club claims to be the oldest club still in existence in Argentina. According to the club's website, the club was founded before 8 December 1864 as a cricket institution. The date of foundation has been recognized by the Buenos Aires Rugby Union. It is however believed that the club was founded in 1831, with existing documentary evidence about a cricket match played by Buenos Aires that same year. Nevertheless, the practise of any "football" code did not start until 1951 when the BACC merged with the Buenos Aires F.C. and rugby union was added.
Club Atlético del Rosario was officially established in 1867 as a cricket institution. The club soon added association football, being the first club from Rosario playing in the Primera División, the top division of Argentina. In rugby union, Rosario AC played the first inter-clubs match in the country on 28 June 1886, when the team faced Buenos Aires Football Club.
Lima Cricket and Football Club claims to be the oldest football-practicing club in Peru and the Americas, having been founded in 1859 by the city's British community.
In Uruguay, the Montevideo Cricket Club, established in 1861, has however been ranked as the oldest rugby union club outside Europe by the World Rugby Museum of Twickenham, although the first certain rugby match played by MVCC was in 1875.
São Paulo Athletic Club was founded on 15 May 1888 by English immigrants, and was the first football club in Brazil. Although association football is not practised anymore, SPAC still hosts rugby union.
North America
Although football variants have been played in North America since the 1820s, the claim of oldest continuous football club in North America is still a matter of debate. Oneida Football Club was founded in 1862, and played the "Boston game", the rules of which have been lost. The modern club, Oneida FC were refounded in 2011 and play rugby league football. The Toronto Argonauts of the Canadian Football League are the longest-running team without having changed their name, being founded in 1873.
In terms of gridiron football the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League can trace their roots back to the Hamilton Football Club (nicknamed the "Tigers") which formed in 1869, then later merged with the Hamilton Wildcats in 1950 to form the current franchise. Their rivals to the north, the Toronto Argonauts, were founded four years later in 1873 and have a mostly unchanged franchise history. Both clubs began as rugby football clubs and only later adapted to the gridiron-style of play which would become known as Canadian football. The oldest continuous rugby club in North America which still plays rugby is the McGill University Rugby Football Club which was established in 1863, although their first recorded game was not until 1865. The oldest independent (non-university) rugby club is the Westmount Rugby Club of Montreal, which formed in 1876.
In the United States, gridiron-based variants of the game did not distinguish themselves from existing codes until 1871, when Harvard University began playing a variation known as the "Boston Game." This allowed a player to pick up the ball and run with it if he were chased and it quickly spread, with innovations added by Yale University student Walter Camp. The oldest existing non-university semiprofessional football club is the Watertown Red & Black, which was founded in 1896. The Arizona Cardinals, formed in Chicago in 1899, are the oldest club currently in the National Football League, although they relocated to St. Louis in 1960 and then to Arizona in 1988. The Green Bay Packers, founded in 1919, are the oldest NFL club still in their original city.
Continental Europe
The first football club in France was established in Paris in 1863 by English expatriates, as the following excerpt from a contemporary newspaper shows: "A number of English gentlemen living in Paris have lately organised a football club.... The football contests take place in the Bois de Boulogne, by permission of the authorities and surprise the French amazingly."
Le Havre AC was founded as an athletics and rugby club in 1872, making it the oldest surviving football club registered in France and continental Europe. They began playing association football on a regular basis in 1894. Technically AS Strasbourg could be considered the first French association football team, being established in 1890; they were however a German team at the time.
Dresden English Football Club was founded on 18 March 1874 and was the first association football club in Germany, and likely the first outside Great Britain. In 1874, over 70 members participated, primarily Englishmen working in Dresden, watched by hundreds of spectators. Another German club, 1860 Munich did not play football until 1899, although it has its origins in a gymnastics and fitness club formed in 1848 and reestablished in the year indicated by its name.
Having been founded on 19 April 1879, FC St. Gallen is the oldest existing association football club in mainland Europe. Playing in the Swiss Super League, they are also the oldest club in continental professional football. The Danish Kjøbenhavns Boldklub was the oldest professional football team on continental Europe until it was merged into F.C. Copenhagen in 1991. The club was formed in 1876 and association football was first played two years later.