1859 copy of 支配するs of football to be auctioned
A copy of the earliest printed 支配するs of football will be auctioned later this month and is 推定する／予想するd to fetch more than £50,000.
One of two 生き残るing copies of the 支配するs printed in 1859 by the world’s first football club, Sheffield Football Club, will be sold at Sotheby’s on July 20, with online bidding 開始 from July 12.
The 16-page 小冊子, which was discovered in a Victorian scrapbook, was created after Sheffield FC’s 委員会 met in October 1858 to formalise the 支配するs of the game, which had been created at public schools and universities.
The indirect 解放する／自由な kick, corner kick and the crossbar were all elements of the game developed by Sheffield FC.
Sheffield FC was 設立するd in 1857, six years before the Football 協会, and is recognised by the FA and Fifa as the world’s oldest football club.
The 小冊子 is 調印するd in pencil by William パン職人, the 委員会 member who 調印するd off the formal 支配するs in club minutes on October 21 1858.
Every member of the club was given a copy of the 支配するs and the only other 生き残るing copy was sold by Sotheby’s as part of Sheffield FC’s historic 古記録 for £881,000 in July 2011.
パン職人 also played for the club and took part in a match against an FA 味方する at Battersea Park in March 1866.
Sheffield FC still 存在するs today, competing in the Northern 首相 League 分割 One East, the eighth tier of the English football pyramid.
The copy of the 支配するs was 設立する in a scrapbook 収集するd by 地元の clergyman the Rev Greville John Chester, who died in 1892 at the age of 62.
Dr Gabriel Heaton, Sotheby’s manuscripts specialist, said: “同様に as 存在 an important artefact in its own 権利, the 小冊子 also gives us a unique insight into the 開発 of the 支配するs of the game through handwritten annotations, 推定では 追加するd by its first owner, as the 支配するs continued to be developed and altered in the 早期に years.
“This exceptional piece of spor ting history takes us straight 支援する to the origins of ‘the beautiful game’ over 160 years ago.
“It was in Sheffield that football was first 明らかにする／漏らすd as an unrivalled 観客 sport, that the experience of interclub 競争 was first experienced, and that football fans first 明らかにする／漏らすd their 忠義 and passion.
“This was the earliest 表現 of the modern footballing culture we know so 井戸／弁護士席 today.”
