Dingley Dell Football Club was a short-lived English association football club based in the London area in the late 1850s and early 1860s.[2]
| Full name | Dingley Dell Football Club |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | The Dellers, D.D., the Templars[1] |
| Founded | 1858? |
| Dissolved | 1864? |
| Ground | Only played away matches |
Dingley Dell F.C. was founded by members of the Dingley Dell cricket club, which was named after the cricket team in a fictitious village described in The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens.[2] The football side played its first match, against Westminster School, at Vincent Square on 24 November 1858[3] in the earliest known football fixture in the London area. Led by lawyer George Turner Sills, Dingley Dell was the most active non-school team in the London area in the five years before the Football Association was established in 1863,[2] and was considered the strongest non-public school club in 1862.[4]
The club's earliest games were all played against Westminster or Charterhouse schools.[2] On 15 February 1862, the club played Surbiton F.C. As this match pre-dated the FA, it was played with ten men per side to rules set out by Dingley Dell,[5] which banned the carrying of the ball, with goals scored by kicking the ball under a tape.[6] Surbiton had been founded by members of Kingston Rowing Club,[4] notably solicitor Theodore Bell, formerly captain of football at Uppingham School,[7] who represented Surbiton at the 'Meeting of the Captains' at the Freemasons' Tavern on 26 October 1863, when the FA was formed[8] (Bell may also have 'doubled up' and represented both Surbiton and Dingley Dell).[8]
The club's final reported fixture was against Westminster School on 11 February 1864.[9]
Although no full record of the Dingley Dell rules survives, in December 1861 Bell's Life magazine published a letter from "D.D." setting out the following:[6]
First, then, football is essentially a game for the feet, hands, therefore ought to be used no more than is strictly necessary.
2. The game is of itself dangerous enough, and all such practices as tripping up, pushing with the hands, ”hacking”, and wild and indiscriminate kicking, ought to be carefully avoided.
3. When a ball is kicked out of bounds it ought to be returned, so as to alter the state of the game as little as possible. It ought, therefore, to be kicked back from the point at which it left the ground, and in a direction perpendicular to that side of the ground.
4. All sneaking and standing off one’s side ought to be strictly prohibited.
I think, sir, that the above fundamental principles are quite sufficient to base a proper set of rules upon, for it follows from No 1 that the ball must never be stopped by the hand when it can be stopped in any other way; that the ball must never be picked up, carried, or guided by the hand; and that when the ball is so high that it cannot be stopped in any other way, it may be stopped by one hand or two, but ought to be dropped at once on the ground.
Moreover, the goal must be kicked under, and not over, the string, as there would be otherwise no chance of kicking a goal at all.
Nos 2 and 3 speak for themselves.
No 4 may be enforced by requiring a certain number of players of the opposite side to be between a kicker and the goal which he is endeavouring to reach, or by not allowing a man to kick a ball which has last been kicked by one of his own side, unless either he was standing behind the kicker at the time the kick was made, or some one of the opposite side first touches the ball.
Football is becoming so popular in England, and is so thoroughly manly, and, therefore, English, that every facility, and every encouragement ought to be given to the practice of the game; and I think that the movement ought to be taken up by the public schools, for they are the nurseries of the game, and in fact, the only places, excepting the Universities where the game is regularly and systematically played. I have no doubt that any set of rules agreed upon by the public schools would be at once adopted by all clubs, and it would be easy for the captains of the elevens to communicate with each other and make the necessary arrangements."
By 1862, the Dingley Dell rules had settled the number on each side as 11, and included a rule on corner-kicks.[4]
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