In the late 19th century the predominant team sport in Rochdale was
rugby, in contrast to nearby towns such as
Bury and
Bolton where association football was the dominant code. The town did not have a professional association football club until 1896, when the Rochdale Athletic Club and the
Rochdale Athletic Ground Company formed Rochdale A.F.C. Previously, there had been a number of amateur sides, including the original Rochdale A.F.C. side formed in 1894 by the Athletic Club. This side played in the Middleton & District League for the 1894/95 season, before folding in the summer of 1895. Many of the players left to join the Rochdale Wanderers club. The earliest association side from Rochdale was Rochdale Clifford, who played from 1887, having played cricket for some seasons before that. Rochdale Clifford were a strong amateur side. In the 1891/92 season they played in both the Manchester Junior Cup and the Lancashire Junior Cup. The 1896 Rochdale A.F.C. club joined the
Lancashire Combination for the
1896–97 season, finishing sixth. The following year they transferred to the
Lancashire League, but met with less success, finishing twelfth out of fourteen teams in
1897–98. The club also entered the
FA Cup for the first time, reaching the second qualifying round. During this season future
Huddersfield Town and
Arsenal manager
Herbert Chapman played for the club, before moving on to
Grimsby Town In the next two seasons the club continued to dwell in the lower reaches of the Lancashire League, with ninth place in
1899–1900 their highest finish. The club was then forced to move grounds, which coincided with financial hardship, and the team withdrew from the Lancashire League. The club entered the following season's FA Cup, winning two ties, but were unable to field a team for their third qualifying round tie against
Workington. The club folded on 1 January 1901, ==Colours==