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Sheffield FC is the birthplace of the modern football and the world’s oldest club. With over 1,000,000 official football clubs world-wide, 'The Club' is the original pattern that has been repeating and tessellating since 1857.  Established on October 24th 1857 in the industrial north of England, ‘The Club’ Sheffield FC is the birthplace of the most popular game in the...

Sheffield is the birthplace of football and boasts the world's oldest clubs; Sheffield FC founded in 1857 (officially recognised by FIFA and the FA as the oldest football club in the world) and Hallam FC founded in 1860 (the world’s second oldest club). Hallam still play on their original ground, Sandygate Road, which is officially recognised by the Guinness Book...

The South Yorkshire city of Sheffield is officially recognised as having several football 'firsts', including the world's first football club, the world's first football ground and the world's first inter-city football derby. Sheffield is where many of the original rules and innovations that still permeate the modern game today, were created and documented. The football heritage of the city is...

‘The Double Helix’ presents the hereditary relationship between these two great and pivotal clubs, a base pair in the very DNA of football.The intertwining double-stranded structure represents the connection between Sheffield FC, the first and oldest club in the world and Real Madrid CF, the greatest club of the 20th century.In 2004, FIFA acknowledged their contributions to the game awarding...

In Paris 2004, FIFA acknowledged the contributions to the world's most popular game of Real Madrid C.F. and Sheffield F.C. The two football clubs were bestowed with the prestigious Order of Merit 'Centenary Award'.  The ‘Tree of Merit’ celebrates the direct lineage between these two highly-contrasting, but inextricably linked clubs, within the ancestry of the game. Sheffield FC (Est. 1857), the first and oldest club...

Sheffield FC’s contribution to the modern game cannot be overstated. It is the first and oldest football club that sought to bring order from chaos. The original rules for the world’s most popular sport were written by 'The Club' at the height of the industrial revolution. The City of Sheffield’s backdrop was that of forges, smoke and molten steel. Established...

Brazilian legend Edson Arantes do Nascimento, better known as Pelé, is perhaps the best known footballer in the world, and popularly considered the best player of all time. Yet on a cold Wednesday afternoon in November 2007, he swappped Brazil for Sheffield in the north of England, to pay homage to the place where the modern game was born. His visit...

The first ever inter-city football derby clash was played on Boxing Day 1860 at Sandygate between the two oldest football clubs in the world – Sheffield FC and Hallam FC.The Sheffield Rules were a code of football devised and played in the English city of Sheffield between 1857 and 1877.The match was played on the oldest football ground in the...

Sheffield United Football Club were formed on 22 March 1889, when they became an offshoot of the Sheffield United Cricket Club. They were the first English sports club to use 'United' in its name and are among the very rare select clubs formed to inhabit a sporting venue that was already in existence and which could be utilised for the...

On Wednesday 4 September 1867, the Wednesday Cricket Club formed a football branch to keep members together during the winter season. The cricket team played on Wednesday afternoons when members, craftsmen, shopkeepers and clerks had a half day off work. The new club was officially named ‘The Wednesday Cricket & Football Club’.  Although they were frequently referred to as Sheffield...

Sócrates Brasileiro Sampaio de Souza Vieira de Oliveira, born 19 February 1954 in Belém do Pará, Brazil. one of the great midfielders and most compelling characters in modern football history, Sócrates captained the Joga Bonita Brazil squad in the 1982 and 1986 World Cups. In the same period he graduated from the Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto, receiving a...

Brazil's 1982 World Cup squad, captained by Socrates, is widely regarded as the greatest team never to win the World Cup.Sócrates was capped 60 times for Brazil between May 1979 and June 1986, scoring 22 goals. He captained the national team at the 1982 FIFA World Cup, regarded by many as the best team ever not to win football's showcase...

The Corinthians' Democracy was an ideological movement spanning a period from 1982 to 1984. It was an innovative way to manage a club, in fact unique, and there is nothing else like this in the history of football. It is recognised in Brazil as one of the most important actions in opposition to the then-ruling military government. Not only an...

Stuart Pearce, MBE, is the current manager and former player at Nottingham Forest. Born 24 April 1962, in Shepherds Bush, London, 'Psycho', as he became affectionately known to the City Ground faithful and subsequently the England fans, gained international notoriety for his honest but fiercely uncompromising, combative style of play and leadership. A career in professional football wasn't proving to...

“Like chess, like music, football is circumscribed in time, yet creates its own temporality within set time limits; or, if you prefer, it owes its abstractedness to a capacity for constantly remodelling the present, or truly inventing it. “One evening, we started to muse over the correspondence between music and football. I was not talking about Vindaloo, or why Seven...

Karl Marx argued that religion is the opium of the people. But it can equally be argued that football (soccer) is the religion of our times. There is an inherent value in following football; it can bond communities, gives people a sense of being part of something larger than themselves, and provides a diversion from the daily dramas of life....

Sheffield resides in a natural amphitheatre created by seven hills and the confluence of five rivers. It is widely considered one of the greenest cities in Europe containing 150 woodlands and public parks. With an estimated two million trees, it has more trees per person than any other city in Europe.  In contrast, it is home to the largest listed...

Pioneered by Dutch giants, Ajax, Total Football (totaal voetbal) is the influential tactical theory in which any outfield player can take over the role of any other player in a team. In this system, the only player fixed in a nominal position is the goalkeeper. No outfield player has a fixed nominal role. Anyone can successively play an attacker, a...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Football's greatest managers knew how much the sport owed to socialism. The very language is socialist – solidarity, unite, goal, come together. In short, football is a socialist sport. Matt Busby, Bill Shankly and Brian Clough were the embodiment's of the golden age of the socialist manager. The founding principle of their management style was a socialist one, in so...

Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, is an English Premier League football club based in Tottenham, North London. The club's home is White Hart Lane and their Latin motto is Audere est Facere (lit: "To Dare Is to Do"). Commonly known as Spurs, they are one of the most successful and long-standing clubs in the top-tier of English football, having collected a host of silverware, including the UEFA Cup, the...

If you want to buy something from the goalsoul range but are not sure what to buy, then our virtual gift vouchers are the perfect solution – allowing the recipient to choose for themselves.  Once you have purchased a virtual gift voucher it will be delivered to you via email, ready to either forward on electronically or print at your...

Wanderers Football Club was founded and captained by Charles W Alcock in 1859 as an amateur football and social club in London. Originally named Forest Football Club, the club changed its name to Wanderers in 1864. At that time the team was mainly comprised of former pupils of the leading English public schools, such as Harrow, Eton and Westminster schools....

The red dragon has been associated with Wales for centuries, and as such, the flag is claimed to be the oldest national flag still in use. It is considered that the Welsh kings of Aberffraw first adopted the dragon in the early fifth century in order to symbolise their power and authority after the Romans withdrew from Britain. Later, around...

Based in the East End of London, West Ham United Football Club, were founded as Thames Ironworks in 1895. The Thames Ironworks was a famous shipbuilding yard and although the club have officially had nothing to do with the old industry for almost a century, the nicknames 'Hammers' and 'Irons', acquired as Thames Ironworks, have stuck ever since. West Ham supporters...

Zbigniew "Zibì" Kazimierz Boniek, born 3 March 1956 in Bydgoszcz, is widely regarded as the best player Poland has ever produced, and is one of the greatest Eastern European players ever.  He started his career with his hometown club Zawisza, before moving to one of the Poland's great clubs, Widzew Łódź, winning two Polish and scoring 50 league goals in...