Sheffield United’s 128th Birthday this week
As Sheffield United head over to Oldham FC today looking for three more points towards promotion to the Championship, we remember 22nd March 1889.
128 years ago, Charles Stokes called upon Charles Clegg as a fellow member of the Bramall Lane Ground Committee to solicit his opinion as to the formation of a new football club. Charles Stokes knew something about running football clubs having been involved with Heely FC and Milton FC and was on the founding Committee of the Wednesday FC in 1867.
United would be different to the earlier clubs, it would be designed along professional lines from the very beginning.
The Sheffield press response was not at all anti-professional, describing it as:
“an entirely new departure, but no pains will be spared to secure the services of first-class players, and it is hoped to be able to get together a combination equal to anything in the country.”
