The club organised a Founders' Week recently contending that the club was founded sometime in mid-October 1879. Club historian Rob Mason has consistently defended this position but even he recognises that there is no information or newspaper reports from this time that would confirm the club was formed at any point in October 1879 or even in the year 1879. There is nothing, not even one report about James Allan organising a training event. That is a fact that cannot disputed.
In comparison, of course, there exists many reports from the time showing the club was formed in 1880 and on a specific date of 25 September. For example, the Sunderland Echo of 27 September 1880, reported that the Sunderland and District Teachers' Association - which was a local trade union affiliated to a larger national organisation - had formed a football club two days earlier. The report does not state where the meeting took place but it is likely to be close to the former Vaux site at the Rectory Park School.
It was in 1887 that the first newspaper report that the club was formed in 1879 was written and then it was not until 1929 that this claim appeared again when, as in 1887, it was based entirely on the memories of people, who admittedly did play a role in setting up the club but who were now very elderly.
In the programme for the Oxford game, the club uses the articles that were written by John Grayston in 1931 when he recalled his experiences of more than 50 years earlier.
What is not stated is that these articles are so full of inaccuracies that whatever Grayston states should be treated with great caution.
Keith Graham, who runs The Stat Cat website, which is the most comprehensive stats site online on Sunderland AFC, has written on this and his work can be found here. Keith believes that the 1879 claim is wrong, HERE.
In this respect he is joined by Paul Days, who first discovered the Sunderland Echo report of 25-09-1880, and myself, author of the Charlie Hurley authorised biography and recognised football historian, in concluding that it is time the club recognised the obvious and changed the founding date to 1880.
Paul, of course, can't be easily dismissed as he was one of the authors of the Official Club History book sent to all season ticket holders in 1999 and which actually includes an image of the 1884-85 season card that states the club was established in 1880. The reason for its formation was to make it possible to enter the inaugural Northumberland and Durham FA Challenge Cup.
Paul, Keith and myself have a number of key supporters. Martin Westby was a recognised football historian who wrote the most comprehensive book to date in 2019 on the origins of football (and rugby) clubs and he was clear that Sunderland AFC was formed in 1880 and not 1879.
Going back to the 1880s, there were annual submissions from 1880 to 1908 by SAFC to Sunderland born Charles Alcock, the then FA Secretary, whose birthplace in Norfolk Street is marked by a plaque. These submissions formed part of the contents of “The (yearly) Football Annual” and which from 1883 onwards stated the club was formed in 1880.
