We all know that Redhill FC are celebrating their 125th anniversary this season. So what was life like in 1894, the year in which our "Founding Fathers" like the Hon. Henry Cubitt (President), Henry Trower (Chairman) and JP Asher (Secretary) met at the Warwick Hotel in Station Road to form the club?

It was Victorian England, an England of top hats and carriages but of grinding poverty too. In that year the Local Government Act reformed local government throughout the country, creating a system of urban and rural districts with elected councils. It also gave women, irrespective of their marital status, the right to vote and stand in local elections. Also in that year, more trivially, Coca-Cola was sold in bottles for the first time and both Blackpool Tower, the great seaside attraction, and London's Tower Bridge were opened.

They were still relatively early days for football. The Football League, then only six years old, had Aston Villa as their champions. Notts County beat Bolton in the FA Cup Final at Everton's Goodison Park, with the original Wembley almost 30 years away from being built. The World Cup and European club competitions were even further away and we hadn't even had the first modern Olympics, though they were held two years later. Transfer fees were in the hundreds of pounds, not the millions. We didn't have things like floodlights, artificial pitches, numbers on the shirts - or VAR!

The season of 1894-95, Redhill's first, began with an unusual "game of three halves" between Sunderland and Derby. Tom Kirkham, the appointed referee, was running late so John Conqueror took charge. When Kirkham arrived at half-time, Sunderland were 3-0 up - but the decision was made to start the game again. Sunderland won 8-0. A club that has done quite well recently, Manchester City, adopted the name "Manchester City" in 1894, having previously been known as "St Marks" and then "Ardwick". But Redhill are older than Crystal Palace, older than Chelsea, older than West Ham and older than Charlton.