The 1874–75 English football season was Aston Villa's first season, fourteen years before the creation of the Football League.
The first game in Birmingham played under association football rules may have been Saltley College Football Club's 1–0 victory over Incogniti on 15 February 1873, but Association football had been slow to take off in Birmingham in comparison to rugby football. Calthorpe Football Club claimed to be the first club in Birmingham with its only matches among club members. The Sheffield rules were popular in the north of England and Calthorpe was keen to promote the association laws. In November 1873, club secretary John Campbell Orr published a letter in the local press, following which a number of other clubs were founded in and around the city. Aston Park had become available to the public for recreation, and this led to several new clubs being founded in the district sharing the footballing areas.
In November 1874 Villa's founders were members of the Wesleyan Chapel at Villa Cross. According to one, Jack Hughes, their Bible meetings consisted around 200 young men some of whom had already set up a cricket team.A Football Jubilee, John Hughes, Sunday Mercury & Sunday News 9 March 1924 The cricketers were keen to find an outlet for their energy in the off-season, they were initially undecided between rugby and association football but one member, Billy Mason, was playing with the Adderley Park Grasshoppers rugby team and four members, Hughes, William Scattergood, Walter Price and George Matthews, were tasked with watching him play. Grasshoppers were due to play the Handsworth rugby club at Heathfield Park so the four attended the match. Having seen the game, the four men returned along Heathfield Road. They adjourned beneath a dim gas light near Villa Cross and between themselves agreed rugby was a little too rough and that they would play association football. The gas lamp meeting is traditionally held as the birth of Aston Villa Football Club.https://www.avfc.co.uk/News/2019/09/04/the-gas-lamp-set-to-open
Co-founder Hughes' view was that Aston Villa Football Club was really formed later by the players who attended the first kick-about on a plot on Westminster Road, now the RCCG Salvation Theatre.Report by the Sports Argus on a talk by co-founder Jack Hughes, 1899 They hired a football for 1s 6d (roughly 1⁄3 the daily wage) from Clapshaw & Cleave. The sixteen then each contributed a shilling and elected Price as their first captain and Charlie H. Midgley as club secretary. H H Hartshorne president of the chapel's bible class was the football club's first President.1874 AVFC History
Originally team captains would consult each other in order to resolve any dispute on the pitch. This role was now delegated to an umpire. Each team would bring their own partisan umpire allowing the team captains to concentrate on the game. Friendlies
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