Dingley Dell F.C.

Did You Know?

• Dingley Dell was described as 'the M.C.C. of football' for its role in pushing for a common set of rules.
• The club's final reported fixture was against Westminster School on 11 February 1864, after which at least four regular players joined the Crusaders club.

History

Dingley Dell F.C. got its start thanks to the Dingley Dell cricket club, which itself took its name from the fictional cricket team in Charles Dickens’s The Pickwick Papers. The football club’s captain, a lawyer named George Turner Sills, put together a side at the beginning of 1858, drawing mostly from University of Cambridge students. That first side played at Westminster School in February, and most of its players belonged to Lincoln’s Inn. The Dingley Dell club played its first official match on 24 November 1858, facing Westminster School at Vincent Square.

That game is the earliest known football fixture in the London area. At least two players from Sills’ earlier Cambridge XI—the Rev. Bonner and W. Williams—also featured in that match. In the five years before the Football Association was formed in 1863, Dingley Dell was the most active non-school team in London, and by 1862 it was considered the strongest club not tied to a public school.

The club’s early fixtures were all against Westminster or Charterhouse schools. One match, played under the name G. Sills’ XI, stretched over two days. On 15 February 1862, Dingley Dell faced Surbiton F.C. in the first known match between two selective clubs—neither a school nor a workplace team. Since the Football Association didn’t exist yet, the rules were negotiable, and the game followed Dingley Dell’s own rules: no carrying the ball, and goals were scored by kicking it under a tape.

Three days later, the club played the War Office (which later became a founding FA member under the name Civil Service F.C.) at Beaufort House, winning 1–0, likely under the same Dingley Dell rules. On 22 February 1862, twelve Dingley Dell players took on Harrow School under Harrow’s rules and lost 2 bases to 0, reportedly because they didn’t know the Harrow game well enough. Over the 1861–62 season, the club’s record was 12 matches played, 3 wins, 4 draws, and 5 losses.

Before the 1862–63 season began, an accident forced Sills to retire, which was a serious setback. The club still had an active season, possibly because fixtures had already been arranged. But when the Football Association was founded at Freemasons’ Tavern on 26 October 1863, Dingley Dell wasn’t represented at the meeting. Theodore Bell of Surbiton may have acted as a de facto representative for the club.