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The Origins of Sunderland Association Football Club

On Monday 27 September 1880 the local Sunderland Daily Echo & Shipping Gazette announced that two days earlier in Rectory Park Schools on Saturday 25 September 1880 at the Sunderland and District Teachers’ Association that the teachers ‘had FORMED a football club.’

The club, which had changed its name to Sunderland AFC on 16 October 1880, subsequently played its first match on Saturday 13 November 1880 at the Blue House Ground, Hendon and lost 1-0 against Ferryhill.

In 1884/85 the club issued a fixture card on which it stated ‘established 1880.’

Confirmation of the start date has been confirmed by recent studies by Paul Days in his book FOUNDING FATHERS THE MEN WHO MADE SUNDERLAND AFC VOL1 and England’s Oldest Football Clubs 1815-1889 - a new chronology of classification of early football by Martin Westby

Sunderland Charles Alcock is known as the ‘Father of Modern Football.’ He was secretary of the FA for 25 years and each year wrote a Football Annual that included statistics and relevant information. In the 1883 annual it states that Sunderland AFC were formed in 1880.

In addition the Northern Athlete newspaper in its 26 September 1883 article, on page 984, entitled “Football Clubs”. Section 5 for each named club gives the “date of formation”. For Sunderland AFC Section 5 states ‘September 1880’.

https://writemark.blogspot.com/2020/04/five-football-historians-combine-to.html