It was 149 years ago this week that The Football Association was founded on 26 October 1863 at the Freemasons’ Tavern in London.

On that date next year, The FA and wider football family will gather together at the same location – now The Grand Connaught Rooms – to celebrate exactly 150 years to the day since the first meeting was held there.

It was then that Ebenezer Morley, a solicitor and sportsman living in Barnes in south-west London, thought that football should have a set of rules in the same way that the MCC had for cricket.

And it was his initiative that led to the meeting at which, on his proposal, The Football Association was formed.

The captains, secretaries and other representatives of a dozen London and suburban clubs met at the Freemasons’ Tavern in Great Queen Street, near to where Holborn tube station is today.

Their purpose was to form an Association with the object of establishing a definite code of rules for the regulation of the game.

The FA’s intention was to standardise the rules, to iron out differences - not to create a new game.

Morley became The FA’s first secretary - and later its president - and he drafted modern football’s first rules at his home in Barnes.

The first match under those rules was played at nearby Limes Field on 19 December 1863. Barnes and Richmond drew 0-0.

The Freemasons’ Tavern was extended and remodelled from 1905 and renamed the ‘Connaught Rooms’ in honour of the Grand Master, the Duke of Connaught.

At around the same time, Limes Field was built on with housing that is now in ‘Limes Field Road’.

Before The FA was formed football was in a hybrid, nebulous state.

But today it spans a world that is caught up in the magic of its special thrill.

To those men of a clear vision and high resolve who first gathered together at the Tavern we owe a great debt.

From them has flowed an ocean of enjoyment, of fun and humour and many life-long friendships struck.

The Football Association is still the organisation that controls all football played in England.

There are now ‘Football Associations’ in more than 200 countries, while The FA is a proud member association within UEFA and FIFA, the European and world governing bodies.