Rochdale Hornets (rugby league), both play home games at the Spotland Stadium. Rochdale AFC were founded in 1907 and joined the Football League in 1921 when the new Football League Third Division (north) was created. The club has never played above the third tier of the English league divisional structure, and before its promotion at the end of the 2009/10 season (their first promotion since 1969), had played continuously in the Football League's lowest division since 1974. However, the club reached the Football League Cup Final in 1962, and lost to Norwich City. Rochdale Hornets is one of the original twenty-two
English public school football games Matthew, a Winchester scholar from 1643 to 1647. He describes how "...we may play quoits, or hand-ball, or bat-and-ball, or football; these games are innocent and lawful. ..". That football at winchester was "innocent and lawful" at this time is very noteworthy. This is strongly supportive of the fact that by the mid-seventeenth century football and other ball games in English public schools had been tamed. "Nugae Etonenses" (1766) by T. Frankland also mentions the "Football Fields" at Eton. A more detailed description of football is given in Francis Willughby's Book of Sports, written in about 1660. This account is