Lima Cricket and Football Club is the oldest sports club in Peru, and one of the oldest in South America

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

. Lima Cricket is possibly the oldest football club

Oldest football club

The history of the formation of the oldest football clubs is of interest to sport historians in tracing the origins of the modern codes of football from casual pastime to early organised competition and mainstream sport. Many early clubs did not use the word "football" in their name...

 in the Americas. Currently, it participates in the district league of San Isidro.

Lima Cricket was originally founded in 1859 by English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 immigrants as the Lima Cricket Club. From its start, it was a multi-sport club based around the sports of cricket

Cricket

Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...

, rugby

Rugby union

Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...

, and association football; however, there was a central focus to cricket. Overtime, other sports gained popularity within the club, and thus its name several times such as in 1865 to Lima Cricket and Lawn Tennis Club (when it merged with a local lawn tennis club) and to Lima Cricket and Football Club in 1906 (although another source dates this as 1900).

Despite its members played football as early as 1859, the club's first recorded football match was in 1893, a year after the first recorded game of football in the Peruvian capital. Lima Cricket went on to inspire future football clubs in Peru such as Union Cricket.

National

• Peruvian Primera División
  Primera División Peruana
  The Peruvian Primera División is the top professional division of Peruvian football. It is known today as Torneo Descentralizado de Fútbol Profesional Peruano...
  
  : 2

Winners (2): 1912

1912 Liga Peruana de Football

The 1912 Primera División was the first season of top-flight Peruvian football. A total of 16 teams competed in the league, The champion was Lima Cricket. This first season with organised league, covering Lima, Callao, and suburbs such as Miraflores and Barranco. Sport José Galvez de Lima withdrew...

, 1914

Runner-up (1): 1913

• Liga Distrital de San Isidro
  Ligas Distritales del Peru
  The Ligas Distritales del Peru are the Peruvian football lower divisions. They are administered by the Local Federations. The level immediately above is the Provincial Stage . For example, The Ligas Distritales in Piura are:-External links:*...
  
  : 2

Winners (2): 2007, 2008

Runner-up (2): 2009, 2010, 2011

External links

• La difusión del fútbol en Lima (Spanish)
• RSSSF - Peru - List of Champions