Earliest Football Photo

With the football season in its final throes, let's look back at the earliest Football XI photograph in the Archives. This dates back to 1885. 

School changed from Rugby Football to Association Football in 1878. It was a rocky start, described in the October 1978 Cholmeleian magazine: 

“There is as yet no proper dribbling, the game has principally carried on by straight kicks at the ball which are of course generally rendered futile by the ball falling to one of the opposite side, who immediately returns it.” 

However, it was not long before they were settled into the new rules with a future “…rivalling the fame, which the School acquired under Rugby Union Rules” (December 1978).