131: Phil Jagielka, Everton, Topps Match Attax Trading Card Game, 2009/10

Mat Jolin-Beech is at the helm for today’s post with a football history lesson for us all and just the thing to get you in the mood for the first weekend of Football League action. As well as today’s offering the Steel City’s early footballing days were graced by The Zulus, a team formed to raise money for widows of the Zulu War and on occasions the team was known to adopt traditional Zulu costumes as part of their playing kit. They were eventually disbanded for bringing the game into disrepute for paying their players. The whole cultural appropriation thing was clearly fine. Over to Mat.

Phil Jagielka, the 38-year-old defender, has seen his second spell at Sheffield United come to an end. After failing to win a contract extension, he joins the plethora of players out of contract and looking for a new club for the new season after proclaiming he’s not yet ready to retire.

After breaking through for the Blades at the age of 17 in May 2000, he helped steer the club back to the Premier League by 2006, and even had a famous stint in goal for the Bramall Lane club. After a dozen years with Everton, the veteran returned to Sheffield United in order to give then some top-flight experience. After a successful first season, the second resulted in relegation and that saw the club’s oldest player leave. As with many posts there is much more that could, and should, be said but this is a jumping off point from one of Sheffield’s oldest players, to Sheffield’s, and the world’s oldest football club. Sheffield FC.

Jagielka – born in 1982. Sheffield FC – born in 1857. Recognised by FIFA as the world’s oldest club still playing football, and one of only two clubs to be awarded the FIFA Order of Merit. The other? Real Madrid. Just as a point of reference, the FA wasn’t founded until 1863, leaving Sheffield FC to play under its own rules – the Sheffield Rules, obviously. This involved some 18-a-side games, a rules derby – which is still played to this day with Hallam FC, and they played a "London team” under FA rules which they lost by two goals and four touches down to nil. Eventually they relented and adopted the FA rules in 1878. You know what they say: you can tell a Yorkshireman, but you can’t tell him much! It seems as though that saying is at least as old as football.

The city, and the club, are rightly proud of their place in history, claiming to be the home of football. The founders, Nathaniel Creswick and William Prest, wrote down the first set of rules for the beautiful game, well ‘Mob Football’, featuring corners, throw-ins, crossbars (Tony Yeboah is grateful for that one), fouls, and free-kicks.

In order to mark the club and Sheffield’s place, and to give football a home to come back to, Sheffield FC is eager to build a new 4,000-seater stadium. Current club chairman Richard Tims wants the new stadium to become a destination for football pilgrims from all over the world. He said: “St Andrews is known around the world as the home of golf, Lord’s is the home of cricket, and we want Sheffield to get the recognition it deserves as the home of football. This will be somewhere to which the sport’s three billion fans can make a pilgrimage and pay homage to the city which gave the world the beautiful game.”

For the ancient club, they are striving hard to get a place on the map. And if they are looking for another headline, there is an ancient defender looking for a new club.