The club had thus been founded by about 1854, and it has a well-documented, continuous history since then, which gives it a strong claim to be considered the world's oldest extant football club of any code. Although Guy's Hospital FC, had been founded in London in 1843, so had existed before DUFC, it later folded up for some years during the nineteenth century. Football in Trinity pre-dates the foundation of the Club itself. A poem by Edward Lysaght shows that it was being played in the College Park in the 1780s.