The Gymnastic Society
Encyclopedia
The Gymnastic Society was an eighteenth-century London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

 sports club for the pursuit of football
Football
Football may refer to one of a number of team sports which all involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball with the foot to score a goal. The most popular of these sports worldwide is association football, more commonly known as just "football" or "soccer"...

 and wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...

. It is arguably the first football club.

Background

The club was established in London by gentlemen from Westmorland
Westmorland
Westmorland is an area of North West England and one of the 39 historic counties of England. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974, after which the entirety of the county was absorbed into the new county of Cumbria.-Early history:...

 and Cumberland
Cumberland
Cumberland is a historic county of North West England, on the border with Scotland, from the 12th century until 1974. It formed an administrative county from 1889 to 1974 and now forms part of Cumbria....

 in the north of England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 for the "practice and cultivation of their favourite sports".

Football

Regular football games were played at the Kennington
Kennington Park
Kennington Park is in Kennington in London, England, and lies between Kennington Park Road and St Agnes Place. It was opened in 1854. Previously the site had been Kennington Common. This is where the Chartists gathered for their biggest 'monster rally' on 10 April 1848...

 common on the south side of the river Thames, in what was formerly Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...

 and close to The Oval
The Oval
The Kia Oval, still commonly referred to by its original name of The Oval, is an international cricket ground in Kennington, in the London Borough of Lambeth. In the past it was also sometimes called the Kennington Oval...

 where a century later the first international football match was to take place. Here "matches for small and large sums were played in the course of each year". The last of the frequent matches took place in the summer of 1789 when "twenty two gentlemen of Westmoreland were backed against twenty two gentlemen of Cumberland for one thousand guineas" These matches have been described in a modern publication as "the most important centre of footballing activity" in the eighteenth century, outside the English public school football games.

One of the last football matches took place on 4 April 1796 at the Kennington common, although some games continued until about 1800.

It is possible that the rules of the Surrey Football Club (1849) were based upon those of the original Gymnastic Society, as the founder William Denison
William Denison
Sir William Thomas Denison, KCB was Lieutenant Governor of Van Diemen's Land from 1847 to 1855, Governor of New South Wales from 20 January 1855 to 22 January 1861, and Governor of Madras from 1861 to 1866....

 referred to the Society in his speech and both clubs played with twenty-two players a side.

The popularity of football is attested to in the 1826 inaugural meeting of a later organisation (entitled "The London Gymnastic Society") its chairman stated that twenty years earlier "the fields to the north, south and west would be crowded every afternoon with cricket and football"

The term "Gymnastic Society" has been used to describe a significant number of English sporting bodies, in the way that the term "sports club" or "football club" is used today. For example, Manchester Athenaeum
Royal Manchester Institution
The Royal Manchester Institution was an English learned society founded on 1 October 1823 at a public meeting held in the Exchange Room by Manchester merchants, local artists and others keen to dispel the image of Manchester as a city lacking in culture and taste.The Institution was housed in a...

's 1849 "Gymnastic Society" played regular Saturday afternoon football matches.

Wrestling

Wrestling took place in the bowling
Bowling
Bowling Bowling Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule Bowling (1375–1425; late Middle English bowle, variant of boule...

 green attached to the Belvedere tavern at Pentonville
Pentonville
Pentonville is an area of north-central London in the London Borough of Islington, centred on the Pentonville Road. The area is named after Henry Penton, who developed a number of streets in the 1770s in what was open countryside adjacent to the New Road...

.
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