History of Mansfield Town F.C.
Mansfield Town was founded in 1897 under the name of Mansfield Wesleyans. Like many football clubs, their name derives from a local church, in this case the Wesleyan church on Bridge Street. Playing in Chocolate and Sky Blue shirts, with Royal Blue shorts and socks, the club played in friendly matches and local cup ties. Its first game was on 4 September 1897, drawing 2–2 against Sherwood Foresters. Mansfield first joined a league in the 1902–03 season, competing in the Mansfield and District Amateur League. 6 September 1902 saw the Wesleyans lose their first league fixture 1-0 away at Mansfield Corinthians. A week later, Shirebrook Swifts put 13 past the Mansfield goalkeeper without reply, the worst defeat ever suffered by the club in a competitive match. The team ended its first season in 7th place (of 12).
Early grounds of Manchester City F.C.
Before Manchester City Football Club moved into their first permanent home in Manchester, England, in 1887, the club played at a short series of grounds which ranged from established cricket venues to bumpy fields with no stands or boundaries nor history of sporting usage. The club was founded as a philanthropic endeavour to encourage impressionable youths to commit to wholesome activities rather than falling to the local adolescent culture of alcohol and violence. The sport of football was barely 15 years from the writing of its own rulebook. The club had no immediate option of using or constructing a stadium, and thus most of their first locations were nothing more than painted lines and goalposts. As the club reformed and changed its name twice between 1880 and 1887, soits choice of locations were a series of low-cost, short-term solutions when their current location became untenable. In 1887, when City moved to their sixth pitch in only eight years, they had the money, ambition, reputation and stability to construct themselves a more permanent base of operations, at the stadium named Hyde Road.