Does anyone know the history of this sheffield team,
have the players names, sheffield lost by the way

I'm afraid I do know the history of this match (well sort of.)

I can't dig out that exact match (though I've got the details somewhere), but in general the story goes something like this.

Football from its inception (in the modern sense) in 1857 with Sheffield Club, until the late 1860's was totally based on friendlies.

Then in 1886/7 some local business man (Tommy Youdan) sponsered the first club cup competition called (surprise surprise) the Youdan Cup - you see sponsership is almost as old as organised football.

Hallam F.C. were the first winners of a modern football competition.

For some reason Tommy Youdan didn't carry on with the competition, however an amusingly named musical hall manager named Oliver Cromwell sponsored a new event in 1867/8 for new clubs (less than 2 years old) which was entered and won by the infant Wednesday Club.
The organisers of this event then formed the Sheffield F.A.

At this time football was only really popular in London and London and Sheffield preferred to keep their independence from the London F.A. (which became the English F.A. which pretends to run football today.)

Cup competition disappeared for 10 years, and through this time the most important fixtures each season were the representative matches between the Sheffield F.A. and the London F.A.

These matches routinely had greater attendances (in Sheffield at least) than the F.A. Cup Final until the early 1880's.

The annual Sheffield - London match was joined over time by Sheffield - Glasgow, Sheffield - Manchester, Sheffield - North Wales and by 1881 Sheffield - Berks and Bucks.

The Sheffield team was picked from all the local teams.

During 1880-81 the local players who represented Sheffield F.A. in all matches were:

Wednesday F.C. :- Hudson, Gregory, Mosforth, Newbould, Lang, Cawley
Heeley F.C. :- Sykes, Moss, Martin, Hunter, Tomlinson
Ecclesfield F.C. :- Gregory, Cutts, Hulley
Exchange F.C. :- Buttery, Winterbottom, McLoughlin
Surrey F.C. :- Whelan, Jones
Sheffield F.C. :- Beardshaw, Sorby
Providence :- Woodcock, Andrews
Staveley :- Young, Marples
Pyebank :- Fletcher, Rodgers
Lockwood Bro. :- Houseley
Redcar :- Harrison

Mosforth and Hunter were England internationals and Lang and Andrews were Scotland internationals.

Sheffield F.A. (a representative side) shoudln't be mistaken for Sheffield Club, who were (obviously) a club side.

I hope I haven't bored you too much.

Not boring at all, now that i've got your attention what do you know of the player Houseley? . they lost 4-0