Epping Forest and the Founding of the Football Association

A book, a Christmas present, can sometimes provide a lead to an unexpected local connection. In this case, the book recorded the development of the rules of sports in Britain.²⁰ In describing the development of the game of football in the mid-nineteenth century, early reference is made to Epping Forest - and the context is unexpected at least to me.

On 26 October 1863, fourteen individuals met in the Freemason's Tavern in Great Queen Street, Covent Garden. They represented a number of organizations and clubs. As individuals they were generally from prominent public schools, as they were the emerging participants in football. The organizations attending the meeting were various and included Barnes (a club of mainly rowers), the War Office, the Crusaders, Perceval House Blackheath, Blackheath School and the Blackheath club itself, Crystal Palace and Surbiton. Another club present was the oddly titled N. N., or No Names, from Kilburn. Forest, based in Epping Forest, and the point of this note, was also represented. The public school of Charterhouse merely sent an 'observer'. Geographically, the flavour was strongly southern, the important northern clubs being excluded!

At the time, there was no single set of rules to govern the game of football and the purpose of the meeting was to draw up a unifying code.²¹ Cambridge University, for example, played by their own Cambridge rules', although perhaps surprisingly they did not attend the meeting. Agreed rules would allow teams to play each other under a common understanding and in comparative safety, a consideration in a game which then permitted considerable physical violence. The group's first action was to form the Football Association (FA), 'with the object of establishing a definite set of rules for the regulation of the game'.²² The initial draft of the code continued to allow running with the ball, tripping and hacking. thought to maintain the overtly masculine element of the game.²³ Subsequently, running with the ball and hacking were made illegal but catching the ball and claiming a free kick was still then permitted.

Forest Football Club, originally formed in 1859, was also known as Forest of Leytonstone where they appeared to be based later. However in 1864 the local link was severed when the club moved to a ground in Battersea Park, London. This move was accompanied by a change in the club name to the Wanderers, appropriately.

The club progressed to become arguably the leading club in the country, a position that was reinforced by the fact that Charles William Alcock, a member of the club, and Captain of their football team, became the Secretary of the Football Association around 1870. He is credited with being the creator of the Football Association Challenge Cup, the first knockout competition and the oldest football contest in the World. Twelve teams entered the first running of the competition, and the Wanderers became the first winners, captained by Alcock, thereby presumably fully justifying his personal support for the cup. On 16 March 1872 they defeated the captains and lieutenants of the Royal Engineers by 1-0 at the Kennington Oval.²⁴ The following year the Wanderers won again, this time beating Oxford University.

Alcock later became Chairman of the FA until 1895. It should also be noted in passing that another celebrated member of the Wanderers, A. G. Guillemard, has been referred to as the father of the Rugby Football Union. It may therefore be claimed that Epping Forest had some influence on the development of the two major sports of these islands. The link is perhaps tenuous now that the Wanderers had assumed their new title and moved away from the area, but the name of Epping is linked with the very carliest steps towards the establishment of the most popular game in the World.