“Based on evidence.” The silent struggle of the city that wants to be recognized as the “cradle of football”

SHEFFIELD, England.- For the food truck man, the land he occupies in Sheffield, in England, is most monotonous. For him, the place – in the drab parking lot of a large home goods store, with the facade painted a bright orange – is not exactly a place where history comes to life.

John Wilson, an academic at the University of Sheffield’s Management School, looks at the same spot and can barely contain his excitement. This, he says, It is one of the places where the most popular sport in the world was born. You don’t see a parking lot. See the story: the green grass, the players sweating, the crowds cheering.

His passion is sincere, absolute and shared by a small group of amateur historians and volunteer detectives dedicated to giving back to Sheffield – best known for steel, coal and as the setting for the film “The Full Monty” – its rightful place as the undisputed cradle of codified, organized and recognizable football.

So far, their attempts have resulted in a walking tour of the city, conducted via a homemade app, and a few slightly worn license plates. But Wilson and his compatriots have a bold vision of what their efforts could produce: a “digital museum” of Sheffield’s football history, a sculpture trail and, above all, a clear and prestigious identity for a city that, in Lately, she has struggled a bit to define herself.

The entrance to Sandygate football ground, believed to be the oldest official pitch in the world, in Sheffield. “This is not a vindication,” says one of Sheffield’s amateur historians of his city’s case for a place in football history. “It’s evidence-based.” (Mary Turner/The New York Times)MARY TURNER – NYTNS

However, Wilson warns that in trying to use the city’s past to shape its future, they have a “tendency to go off on tangents.” You are right. In the half-hour walk to the parking lot, Wilson, 65, and two of his fellow enthusiasts, John Stocks, a 65-year-old retired English teacher and writer, and John Clarkea 63-year-old retired computer engineer, touched on a range of topics including, but not limited to, social migration patterns in Victorian England, the Netflix series “The English Game,” and the practice of covering walls with crossword puzzles. , a waste product of iron furnaces.

They discussed each digression with glee, eagerly diving into each rabbit hole. Like many passionate hobbyists, they delighted in the details as much as the sweep. However, the image they have in their minds is clear. “In the 1850s and 1860s, there were hundreds of teams playing against each other in competitive matches, on fields throughout the city,” Stocks explains. By studying Sheffield’s football legacy, he said, the past they have unearthed reveals that the city was “home to the world’s first true football culture”. That, they believe, could also be the key to their future.

But the title of “cradle of football” -always with capital letters and never “soccer”- is controversial. It applies semi-officially to Wembley, the stadium in the endless gray expanse of northwest London that is home to both the English national team and the Football Association, the governing body of the beautiful game in England.

Visit England, the country’s tourist board, is supporting another contender. Describes Manchester as the “cradle of football”, as it houses two Premier League heavyweights and the National Football Museum. Manchester is also the place where the Football League, the sport’s first professional competition, was created.

By comparison, Sheffield’s title bid is distinctly homegrown. A brief summary of the city’s role in the creation of football is on the Sheffield tourist board website, and an archive is on display in the ‘local studies’ section of the city library.

“We haven’t been very good at promoting ourselves,” says Richard Caborn, a former City MP and Sports Minister during Tony Blair’s Labor government. “We have never really positioned ourselves to exploit it.”

Sheffield Home of Football, an educational charity set up by Wilson and his fellow travellers, has stepped into that void. “We’ve gone through the history and we have the documentation,” Caborn said. “It is not a demand. “It’s evidence-based.”

Sheffield’s case is compelling. Sheffield FC, the oldest club in the world, was founded here. So was Hallam FC, the second oldest in the world. Hallam’s home ground, Sandygate, has been hosting football matches since 1860, longer than any other venue. It was also in Sheffield that the rules of the game that would become football were first written down.

Stocks and his fellow “obsessives” – in his own words – derive the greatest satisfaction from finding corroborating evidence. It is a meticulous job, searching through physical and digital archives, but it is worth it, he says.

“There are some of us who stay up all night following a lead we’ve found,” Stocks says. “I’m not that bad, but I spend a lot of time on it. I have other projects that I should dedicate myself to, but the reality is that most of the time I am doing this.”

John Stocks, left, and John Wilson in the stands at Sandygate, which claims to be the oldest football stadium in the world, in Sheffield, England, on February 6, 2024. Wilson and a small group of amateur historians and Volunteer detectives are dedicated to returning Sheffield – best known for steel, coal and as the setting for the film “The Full Monty” – to its rightful place as the undisputed birthplace of codified, organized and recognizable football. (Mary Turner/The New York Times)MARY TURNER – NYTNS

Thanks to your work, Sheffield can now claim, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that it is the birthplace of world football’s first derby – the match between city rivals Sheffield FC and Hallam, on the parking lot of the football supply store. home-, as well as the first corner, the first use of the crossbar and the first match report.

Stocks has also traced the suggestion that the pass was invented in Sheffield, and not Scotland, as is commonly believed. There are accounts of what sounds a lot like professionalism. “We think there is also a possibility that the first German team was founded here,” says Wilson. Part of the excitement, they admit, is to correct some of the inaccuracies of what they call the “popular history” of football. His driving force, however, is the sense that his discoveries may define not only what Sheffield was, but what it might still be.

In the 1980s and 1990s, Sheffield was hit hard by the decline of British heavy industries; even more so than much of the rest of northern England, according to Wilson. Built on steel and coal, the city was run for years by a left-wing council that was a thorn in the side of successive British governments. “They called her the Socialist Republic of South Yorkshire”, explain the protagonists. With factories and mines closing, Sheffield struggled for investment and identity.

From left to right, amateur historians John Stocks, John Wilson and John Clarke chat in a food truck which they believe is where the world’s first derby was played, in Sheffield. Wilson and a small group of amateur historians and volunteer detectives are dedicated to returning Sheffield – best known for steel, coal and as the setting for the film “The Full Monty” – to its rightful place as the undisputed birthplace of codified football, organized and recognizable. (Mary Turner/The New York Times)MARY TURNER – NYTNS

The various modern conceptions of Sheffield have not given rise to a new one. The setting of the film “Brassed Off” and “The Full Monty”, and the birthplace of Pulp and the Arctic Monkeys, two of the most important British groups of the last quarter of a century, the city has also built a reputation for advanced industry. The world billiards championship is held here every year.

However, nothing has completely settled. “The city council is betting big on music,” says Stocks. “But it won’t work. We are not Liverpool. We are not London. “We are not Glasgow.”

Football, however, is different. For him and others, Sheffield’s role in creating the world’s most popular sport should be its calling card, its claim to fame, not necessarily to attract tourists, but to find its place in the world, to define its sense of identity. “Most people here only have a vague knowledge of some things,” Wilson says. “They don’t know that we have a unique identity, that this is something we have given to the world. No other city can say that.”.

Rory Smith

The New York Times

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