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Created 23-Feb-16
65 photos, 3 videos

The Blackheath Football Club was founded in 1862 by 3 old boys of the Blackheath Proprietary School. The local boys played football by the Rugby School rules (more or less).

When the Blackheath Club was founded, there was a Blackheath Hockey and Football Club (fd 1861) as well as the Proprietary School team, but it was the BPS team which by the end of the decade became the most powerful and successful of the Rugby union clubs in the country.


In 1863, a meeting at The Freemason's Arms in Covent Garden was held to try to agree a standard rule book for football, once and for all. Some delegates insisted that the new rules should not only forbid the handling of the ball but that neither nor hacking (deliberate shin-kicking), holding or pushing the opponent should be allowed. Blackheath Club could not accept this fundamental alteration to their own style of play and immediately left the embryo Football Association.

This schism led to the separate development of the soccer (dribbling) clubs as members of the FA and the other clubs who, in 1871, formed the Rugby Football Union.
006635 Historic football 1846007112 1862 Possibly Blackheath Football Club007122  Blackheath Proprietary School Football Club, 1869 team007110 Blackheath Football Club, Unknown date007081 Blackheath Football Club, 1967-68007085 1960-61, Blackheath Football Club007090 1955-56 Blackheath Football Club007097 1947-48 Blackheath Football Club007098 1946-47 Blackheath Football Club007087 1958-59 Blackheath Football Club007088 1957-58 Blackheath Football Club007086 1959-60 Blackheath Football Club007078 1973-74 BlackFootballClub007079 1971-72 BlackFootballClub007083 1963-64 Blackheath Football Club007084 1962-63 Blackheath Football Club007089 1956-57 Blackheath Football Club007080 1970-71 BlackFootballClub007082 1965-66 Blackheath Football Club007091 1953-54 Blackheath Football Club

Categories & Keywords
Category:Sports
Subcategory:Rugby
Subcategory Detail:
Keywords:BFC, BPS, Blackheath Proprietary School, Covent Garden, Sport, rugby