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What is the world’s oldest soccer club?

The Sheffield Football Club was founded in 1857 in Sheffield by Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, and is now recognized as the world’s oldest club. The club initially played William Prest, and is now recognized as the its own code of football: the Sheffield rules. Players were allowed to push or hit the ball with their hands, and there was no offside rule at all, so that players known as “kick throughs” could be permanently positioned near the opponents’ goal.

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Did you know …

that the Inuit played a game called asqaqtuk, which involved booting a heavy ball stuffed with grass, caribou hair, and moss across the arctic tundra between goals as much as 10 miles (16 kilometres) apart?

What is the oldest national soccer team in the world?

That would be a tie. Both Scotland and England were the first countries to put forward national teams, in 1872. In fact, they did so for a match against each other, which also allows them to share the credit of holding the first international match. The game was held at Hamilton Crescent in Partick, Scotland, on November 30 that year, and, appropriately enough, it ended in a goalless tie.