STOKE CITY FC

Stoke City (granted city status in 1926) has long been considered the second-oldest Football League club, although uncertainty clouds the actual date of formation. In 1863 the story goes that former pupils of the Charterhouse School formed a football club while serving as apprentices at the North Staffordshire Railway works in Stoke. But little evidence exists of any matches taking place, even though at that time some form of soccer may have already existed in the area as the headmaster of Stoke St Peter's School, J.Thomas, was an active sportsman and secretary of the local Victoria Athletic Club.
Five years later a report in “The Field” magazine of September 1868 made things much clearer. It stated that a new Association Football club had been formed in Stoke-on-Trent and its founder member was an ex-Charterhouse School pupil. So it's possible that soccer had been played in the area during the previous five years, although in terms of official records the first game played by Almond's team, known as Stoke Ramblers and consisting largely of railway employees, was in October 1868. The historic match, against an EW May XV, ended in a 1-1 draw and was played at the Victoria Cricket Club ground, near to Lonsdale Street and Church Street. Almond, the skipper, scored the first-ever goal by a Stoke player, although he was soon to leave the club and the area to pursue his career as a civil engineer. Stoke left the league (replaced by Sunderland) after two years of being in last place, but when the league was extended to 14 teams they re-joined with Darwen in 1891. In 1892-3 two divisions were formed, Stoke came 7th in division one and Darwen went to division two.
and the nice thing about Stoke is that it is very much a family club-they sent me a birthday greeting recently!