{"id":74672,"date":"2023-11-30T09:26:38","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T09:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.solopress.com\/blog\/?p=74672"},"modified":"2023-12-01T09:54:50","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T09:54:50","slug":"the-worlds-oldest-football-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.solopress.com\/blog\/print-inspiration\/the-worlds-oldest-football-programme\/","title":{"rendered":"The world\u2019s oldest football programme"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Football programmes remain a popular piece of matchday merchandise for many fans. Last year alone, over 3.12 million were sold throughout the 2022\/2023 Premier League season.<\/span><\/p>\n

Their success and stability in the game started 150 years ago when the oldest known football programme was produced.<\/span><\/p>\n

One for the records<\/b><\/h2>\n

Cast your mind back to December 6<\/span>th<\/span>, 1873.<\/span><\/p>\n

The FA Cup final had been played twice, the first FIFA World Cup was still 57 years away, Manchester United had another five years until its existence, and VAR wouldn\u2019t stain the beautiful game for another 146 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"VAR\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On a blustery winter morning in Connecticut, 150 years ago, a match between Yale College and Eton College was recorded on the oldest known football programme.<\/span><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Eton were unable to bring it home, as they lost the game 2-1. Nor were they able to bring home the programme itself, which didn\u2019t resurface for another 100 years when it was discovered inside a lost scrapbook.<\/span><\/p>\n

This printed relic contained four pages, a front and back cover and two internal pages. Its front cover highlighted the participating teams, date, location and sport, while the two internal pages listed the 11 players on either team.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Left blank in the original document, the back cover contained lines to be filled in at the owner’s discretion. This included opportunities to record the name of the referee, the judges from Eton and Yale, and the score accompanied by the goal scorers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Though some programmes were produced earlier in America, this is the earliest example of an 11-a-side matchday programme ever found.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Besides producing this historical print, the match played itself into the history of the game for a number of reasons.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most notably, this game is regarded as the first international football match in the history of the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

Name-dropping<\/strong><\/h3>\n

While all names were printed with the player\u2019s initials and last name in full, there is one notable name on the second page among Eton\u2019s 11.<\/span><\/p>\n

Archibold Primrose, printed on the page as Earl of Rosebery, would become Britain\u2019s Prime Minister some 20 years later, in a short stint from 1894-1895.<\/p>\n

After his brief time in charge of England, Primrose moved north of the border where he became an important figure in Scottish football, first becoming President of the Scottish FA and then the President of Heart of Midlothian football club.<\/p>\n

\"Earl<\/a><\/p>\n

Bending the rules<\/b><\/h2>\n

Played at Hamilton Park on their New Haven campus, Yale invited their cousins from across the pond to educate them on their new game.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

An ancestor of our modern game, this historic match would be unrecognisable to today\u2019s fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Football<\/a><\/p>\n

Previously, American matches consisted of 25-man teams in games that weren\u2019t restricted to 90 minutes, but until one side reached a mystical six goals.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s believed that the English influence of Eton persuaded the match to be played as faithfully as possible to Association Rules (FA) which were originally published in 1863.<\/span><\/p>\n

This resulted in the game being played with 11-a-side, as per Eton\u2019s suggestion. Many of the remaining rules merged into a soccer hybrid, as agreed by Yale representatives several months earlier.<\/span><\/p>\n

These rules included:<\/span><\/p>\n