, London It was in England where the first official Association with clear rules was formed. For centuries before the first meeting of the Football Association in the
Freemasons' Tavern on
Great Queen Street, London on 26 October 1863, there were no universally accepted rules for playing football. In 1862,
Ebenezer Cobb Morley, as captain of
Barnes, wrote to ''Bell's Life'' newspaper proposing a governing body for the sport "with the object of establishing a definite code of rules for the regulation of the game"; the letter led to the first meeting at The Freemasons' Tavern that created the FA in 1863. Morley was a founding member. ended in a split between the Association football and
Rugby football. Both of them had their own uniforms, rituals, gestures and highly formalised rules. In
public school games, the rules were formalised according to local conditions; but when the schoolboys reached university, chaos ensued when the players used different rules, so members of the
University of Cambridge devised and published a set of
Cambridge Rules in 1848 which was widely adopted. Eleven London football clubs and schools' representatives met on 26 October 1863 to agree on common rules. Many of these clubs are now defunct or still play
rugby. Civil Service FC, who now plays in the
Southern Amateur League, is the only one of the original eleven football clubs still in existence, with an unbroken history, and playing
association football,
Split from rugby At the final meeting,
F. M. Campbell, the first FA treasurer and the Blackheath representative, withdrew his club from the FA over the removal of two draft rules at the previous meeting, the first which allowed for the running with the ball in hand and the second, obstructing such a run by
hacking (kicking an opponent in the shins), tripping and holding. Other
English rugby clubs followed this lead and did not join the FA but instead in 1871 formed the
Rugby Football Union. An inaugural game using the new FA rules was initially scheduled for
Battersea Park on 2 January 1864, but enthusiastic members of the FA could not wait for the new year: the
first game under F. A. rules was played at Mortlake on 19 December 1863 between Morley's Barnes team and their neighbours
Richmond (who were not members of the FA), ending in a goalless draw. The Richmond side were obviously unimpressed by the new rules in practice because they subsequently helped form the
Rugby Football Union in 1871. The Battersea Park game was the first exhibition game using FA rules, and was played there on Saturday 9 January 1864. The members of the opposing teams for this game were chosen by the President of the FA (
A. Pember) and the Secretary (
E. C. Morley) and included many well-known footballers of the day. After the first match according to the new FA rules a toast was given "Success to football, irrespective of class or creed". Another notable match was
London v Sheffield, in which a representative team from the FA played
Sheffield FC under Association rules in March 1866;
Charles Alcock described this game as "first [match] of any importance under the auspices of the Football Association". Alcock (of
Harrow School) of the Wanderers was elected to the committee of the FA in 1866, becoming its first full-time secretary and treasurer in 1870. He masterminded the creation of the
Football Association Cup—the longest-running association football competition in the world—in 1871. Fifteen participating clubs subscribed to purchase a trophy. The first Cup Final was held at
The Oval on 16 March 1872, fought between the Wanderers and the
Royal Engineers (RE), watched by 2,000 spectators.
Single set of laws After many years of wrangling between the London-based Football Association and the
Sheffield Football Association, the FA Cup brought the acceptance that one undisputed set of laws was required. The two associations had played 16 inter-association matches under differing rules; the Sheffield Rules, the London Rules and Mixed Rules. In April 1877, those laws were set with a number of Sheffield Rules being incorporated. In 1890, Kinnaird replaced Major Francis Marindin, becoming the fourth president of the Football Association. Kinnaird had at that time been a FA committeeman since the age of 21, in 1868. Kinnaird remained president for the next 33 years, until his death in 1923. The FA Cup was initially contested by mostly southern, amateur teams, but more professionally organised northern clubs began to dominate the competition during the early 1880s; "The turning point, north replacing south, working class defeating upper and professionals impinging upon the amateurs' territory, came in 1883." Hitherto,
public school sides had played a dribbling game punctuated by violent tackles, but a new passing style developed in Scotland was successfully adopted by some Lancashire teams, along with a more organised approach to training.
Blackburn Olympic reached the final in March 1883 and defeated
Old Etonians. Near-neighbours
Blackburn Rovers started to pay players, and the following season won the first of three consecutive FA Cups. Three years later, in 1888, the first
Football League was established, formed by six professional clubs from northwest England and six from the midlands. The Football Association has updated their logo several times. They celebrated their 150th year with a special 2013–2014 season logo. The shield design (taken from the
coat of arms of the Football Association) is the same, but the three lions, rosettes and border are in gold instead of black and red, with the usual white background. The title strip above reads "The FA" in white on gold, and there is a scroll below reading "150 years" in white on gold, between "1863" and "2013".
Women's football By 1921 women's football had become increasingly popular through the charitable games played by women's teams during and after the
First World War. In a move that was widely seen as caused by jealousy of the crowds' interest in women's games which frequently exceeded that of the top men's teams, in 1921 the Football Association banned all women's teams from playing on grounds affiliated to the FA because they thought football damaged women's bodies. For several decades, this meant that women's football virtually ceased to exist. The decision to exclude women was only reversed from 1969 when, after the increased interest in football caused by England's
1966 World Cup triumph, the Women's Football Association was founded, although it would take a further two years – and an order from UEFA – to force the (men's) Football Association to remove its restrictions on the playing rights of women's teams. It was not until 1983 that the WFA was able to affiliate to the FA as a "County Association" and only in 1993 did the FA found the "Women's Football Committee" to run women's football in England. The "Women's Football Conference", as it is now known, has representation on the
FA Council equivalent to a
County Football Association. ==Honours==