Nottingham Forest are still the Football League's oldest club, say leading historians, despite "absurd" claims from Crystal Palace who now believe themselves to lay claim to that title.
Cross-Trent rivals Notts County had held that claim for over 130 years but the baton was passed when the Magpies were relegated from the Football League in May.
Initially, it was believed that Stoke would take the mantle, with their badge claiming that the club were founded back in 1863, two years before the Reds (1865).
However, leading football historian Mark Metcalf sparked a three-week-long row when he dug deep into the archives to prove that the Potters were not founded until three years after Forest.
Thus making the Reds, officially, the oldest club in the EFL.
However, Crystal Palace have recently published new research claiming the club has roots going back to 1861, despite having an acknowledged founding date of 1905.
That would make them older than even Notts County, who would are just a promotion away from regaining their crown.
But that Palace claim has now been shouted down by the very same historians who proved Forest to be the now oldest club, poking fun at the South London club's "serious memory lapse."
They have produced an 84-page dossier, which can be downloaded in full for free, on the debate and it came to one conclusion - Nottingham Forest are still the oldest current football club.
Metcalf and fellow historian Clive Nicholson have said: “This is quite a claim and being very interested in football history we sought to see if it was true.
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"Our examination was very thorough and has resulted in an 84-page document packed with primary/contemporary source materials.
“This document shows that the Crystal Palace Football Club claim is slightly absurd and is ultimately reduced to a short note in 1906 in the CPFC club handbook and which appears never to have been mentioned again anywhere by CPFC since very recently.
“It is possible to forget your own history but that really is a serious memory lapse.
“We reveal that the first CPFC side were affiliated to the FA between 1861 and 1875, at which point the club ceased to exist.
“There is then no FA affiliated club with the FA for a 30 year period until a new and totally separate club forms in 1905," they concluded.
