Historic earliest rules of club football up for auction
Sotheby's London has announced the sale of the earliest rules of club football, being sold as part of the historic archive of the world’s oldest football club, Sheffield FC (established 1857), which is estimated at £800,000 - £1,200,000*. This extraordinary and unique piece of sporting history, which represents a crucial step towards the evolution of the modern game of association football, is the earliest set of rules ever likely to come to the market. The lot includes both the original handwritten draft rules (1858) and the only known surviving copy of the printed Rules, Regulations, & Laws of the Sheffield Foot-Ball Club (1859). In its entirety, the archive documents the club’s earliest years in astonishing detail and provides a fascinating insight into British sporting and social history.
