An Important Meeting

On 26 October, 1863, a group of Victorian gentlemen representing the different football clubs met at the Freemasons Tavern in London. They arrived in carriages pulled by horses, and spent the evening in a small gas lit office.

After many hours of argument, the clubs finally agreed on a single set of rules for ‘association’ football or soccer. They wrote these rules down in an ordinary exercise book. This exercise book is now in the FA museum.

• Football Association

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Towards the end of the meeting, the men made another very important decision. In the famous exercise book it says : ‘... the clubs represented at this meeting now form themselves into an association. This association shall call itself the Football Association.’

Did the Victorian gentlemen at the Freemasons Tavern understand what they were doing? Probably not. The football they knew

• had no stadiums or supporters or cups or leagues.
  ▪ was played by rich young men in a few English schools and universities.
  ▪ was not an international game or even a national one.

Birth of 'soccer'

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But the modern game of football was born on 26 October, 1863. The Football Association or FA is still the organisation that controls all football played in England. It is famous all over the world, and has been copied in hundreds of different countries.

Every year thousand of football fans visit the FA headquarters in west London. They can look at that famous old exercise book.