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The sport of association football is the unofficial national sport of England, and as such has an important place within English national life. The sport is almost always referred to simply as football, and rarely as association football or soccer. Any unqualified reference to football in an English context should be read as a reference to association football rather than to any other member of the football family of sports. The only other members of this family played to any great extent in England belong to the rugby football sub-family, and are always referred to as rugby. The title and remainder of this article refers to football in its English sense.
Football as an organised sport first developed in England before being carried throughout the world by its many fans.
The Football Association
The Football Association (The FA) is the governing body of football in England. All of England's professional football clubs must be members, and thousands of semi-professional and amateur clubs also belong.
League system
The Football League, established in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor, was the first professional football league in the world. Since its founding, however, many other leagues have been founded in England. Over recent years there has been an increasing effort to link all these leagues together in a Pyramidal structure allowing promotion and relegation between different levels. The primary motivation for this drive is to maintain the possibility that any club in England may dream of one day rising to the very top, no matter what status they currently hold.
The FA Premier League
The FA Premier League is the highest league in English football and has 20 member clubs. Winning the Premier League is considered the greatest honour in English football and guarantees qualification for the UEFA Champions League, Europe's elite club competition.
The Premier League was founded in 1992 after England's top clubs broke away from the Football League in a successful effort aimed at increasing their income at the expense of clubs in the lower divisions. Links with The Football League were maintained, and each season the bottom three clubs are relegated from the Premier League and replaced by three from the Football League Championship.
The top two teams in the Premier League each season qualify for the next season's UEFA Champions League. The third and fourth placed clubs also qualify, but have to play in the final qualifying round before they can enter the group stage. The fifth placed club qualifies for the UEFA Cup (although in 2005-06 the fifth placed team, Liverpool, were also allowed into the Champions League as holders), and the sixth and seventh may also qualify if the winners of either the FA Cup or League Cup finish in the top four. The number of clubs qualifying for European competition is determined by UEFA and is based on results over the previous five seasons.
The Football League
Although the oldest league in the world, the Football League now ranks second in the hierarchy of English football after the split of England's top clubs in 1992 to form the FA Premier League. The Football League has 72 member clubs evenly divided among three divisions, currently named the Football League Championship, Football League One and Football League Two.
The English football league system
Below the Football League is what is commonly known as "non-League football". This term is confusing, as it refers to those clubs outside the (Football) League, although they still play in organised league competitions. In recent years, the top few levels have been consolidated into the National League System, operated by the FA. Many clubs in the Conference National division are fully professional, and many other clubs are semi-professional.
There is automatic promotion and relegation between League Two and Conference National, and for several levels below the Conference, although this becomes more irregular further down the league system. The non-League system is often known as the "pyramid", because the number of leagues at each level begins to increase as you go down through the levels, with each league covering a smaller geographic area. See English football league system for details.
Amateur football
Although the Football Association abandoned a formal definition of "amateur" in the early 1970s, the vast majority of clubs still effectively play as amateurs, with no financial reward. The Amateur Football Association is the largest organised of such competitions, being particularly strong in the London area.
Reserve leagues
Many teams operate reserve teams in separate leagues; in some lower levels of the pyramid, reserve teams play against first teams. The top division for reserve teams of professional clubs is the FA Premier Reserve League. Beneath that operate the Central League, and the Football Combination, which cover the north and south of England respectively.
Cup competitions
The two most important cup competitions in England are the FA Cup and the League Cup, but several other national cups are targeted at clubs at different levels.
The FA Cup, first held in 1872, is the oldest and most respected national cup competition in the world. It is open to around 600 clubs in the higher levels of the pyramid. The FA Community Shield is played each August as a one-off match between the FA Cup winners and the Premier League champions.
The League Cup (currently known as the Carling Cup) is England's second major cup competition, and is contested by the 92 Premier League and Football League clubs. The winners of both main cup competitions qualify for the UEFA Cup, and both are considered as important tournaments.
The Football League Trophy is a competition for clubs in Football League One and Football League Two, as well as the top few clubs from the Football Conference.
The FA Trophy is open to clubs in roughly the top three levels of the National League System, and the FA Vase is for clubs in the next couple of levels below that. These competitions replaced the FA Amateur Cup, which was the leading competition for amateur non-League teams for many years. Representative teams from leagues lower still, mostly at county level, contest the FA National League System Cup, and the FA Sunday Cup is for Sunday league football teams.
Other defunct national cup competitions include:
Qualification for European competitions
Clubs who do well in either the FA Premier League, FA Cup or League Cup can qualify to compete in various UEFA-organised Europe-wide competitions in the following season (as well as continuing to play in domestic competitions). Currently, England is awarded the following places in European competitions:
| Competition | Who Qualifies | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| UEFA Champions League | Club finishing 1st in the FA Premier League | |
| Club finishing 2nd in the FA Premier League | ||
| UEFA Champions League Third Qualifying Round | Club finishing 3rd in the FA Premier League | |
| Club finishing 4th in the FA Premier League | If an English club wins that season's Champions League and finishes outside the top four, they go straight into the Champions League and the fourth-placed club instead goes into the UEFA Cup | |
| UEFA Cup | Club finishing 5th in the FA Premier League | If the fifth-placed club has already qualified for Europe through the FA Cup or League Cup, then the next-highest Premier League finishers get this place |
| FA Cup winners | If the FA Cup winners have already qualified for Europe by a high Premier League finish or by winning the League Cup, then the FA Cup runners-up receive this place; if the runners-up have also already qualified, then the highest-finishing Premier League club to have not qualified for Europe gets the place | |
| League Cup winners | If the League Cup winners have already qualified for Europe by a high Premier League finish, then the next highest-finishing Premier League club gets this place | |
| Any English club that wins the UEFA Cup and has not already qualified for the Champions League or UEFA Cup | By the UEFA Cup regulations (Regulation 1.07), this club's entry into the UEFA Cup will not be at the expense of any other entries to which its national federation is entitled. | |
| UEFA Intertoto Cup Third Round | Club finishing highest in the FA Premier League to have entered and not qualified for any other European competition |
The England national team
The England national football team played in the very first international football match at Hampden Park in Glasgow, against Scotland in 1872. Their greatest triumph to date was winning the World Cup in 1966.
Women's football
- Main article: Women's football in England
Burton Brewers' 57-0 loss against Willenhall Town on March 4, 2001 in the West Midland Regional Women's Football League, Division One North may be a British record for the biggest defeat in a football match *.
Beyond organised football
Football in England is not just a spectator sport or the preserve of official leagues and clubs, but a sport attracting mass participation at many different levels and in a wide variety of forms.
Stadia of English Football
History of English football
Pre-codification
Football's roots in England can be found in Mediæval football, which was played annually on Shrovetide. It is suggested that this game was derived from those played in Brittany and Normandy, and could have been brought to England in the Norman Conquest. These games were violent and largely ruleless. As a result, they were often banned.
Early Rules
England was the first country in the world to develop codified football, coming about from a desire of its various public schools to compete against each other. Previously, each school had its own rules, which may have dated back to the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries. The first attempts to come up with single codes probably began in the 1840s, with various meetings between school representatives attempting to come up with a set of rules with which all would be happy. The first attempt was The Cambridge Rules, created in 1848; others developed their own sets, most notably Sheffield F.C. (1855) and J.C. Thring (1862) *. These were moulded into one set in 1863 when the Football Association was formed; though some clubs continued to play under the Sheffield Rules until 1878, and others dissented to form Rugby Union instead.
First Competitions
The FA Cup was the first nationally organized competition. A knockout cup, it began 1871, with the first winners being the Royal Engineers. In those days professionalism was banned, and the cup was dominated by service teams or old schoolboys' teams (such as Old Etonians). The Scottish Football Association split from the FA in 1873, a year after England played their first international game against a team of Scottish players.This period in English football was dominated by conflict between those who supported professionalism, and those who wanted the game to remain amateur. Clubs in Scotland and Northern England generally supported a professional game, as the working class of these regions could not afford to miss work in order to play football. In Southern England, the game was more popular with the middle class, who supported Corinthian values and amateurism. A number of clubs, such as Blackburn Rovers and Darwen were accused of employing professionals, and the FA eventually legalized the practice in 1885, in order to avoid a split.
The new professionals needed more regular competitive football in which they could compete, which led to the creation of the Football League in 1888. This was dominated by those clubs who had supported professionalism, and the twelve founding members consisted of six from Lancashire (Blackburn Rovers, Burnley, Bolton Wanderers, Accrington, Everton and Preston North End) and six from the Midlands (Derby County, Notts County, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers). Preston North End won the first ever Football League championship without losing any of their 22 fixtures, and won the FA Cup to complete the double. They retained their league title the following year but by the turn of the 20th century they had been eclipsed by Aston Villa, who had emulated Preston's double success in 1897.
In 1892, a new Division Two was added, taking more clubs from the North East and London. By 1898, both divisions had been expanded to eighteen clubs. Other rival leagues on a local basis were being eclipsed by the Football League, though both the Northern League and the Southern League - who provided the only ever non-league FA Cup winners Tottenham Hotspur in 1901 - remained competitors in the pre-World War One era.
During the first decade of the 20th century, Manchester City looked to be emerging as England's top side after winning the FA Cup in 1904, but it was soon revealed that the club had been involved in financial irregularities, which included paying £6 or £7 a week in wages to players when the national wage limit was £4 per week. The authorities were furious and rebuked the club, dismissing five of its directors and banning four of its players from ever turning out for the club again.
City's neighbours United were the dominant force during the early 20th century. They reached the First Division in 1906 and were crowned league champions two years later. The following year, 1909, they won the FA Cup and they added another league championship in 1911. A decline set in, however, and there would be no major trophies for the red half of Manchester for the next 37 years.
On the international scene, the Home Nations continued to play each other, with Scotland the slightly more successful of the four. When the countries combined to play as Great Britain in the Olympic Games they were unbeatable, winning all three pre-World War One football gold medals. England played their first games against teams outside of the British Isles in 1908.
Interwar Expansion
During the interwar years, Arsenal and Everton were the two most dominant sides in English football, although Huddersfield Town did make history in 1926 by completing a unique hat trick of successive league titles. Herbert Chapman, who managed Huddersfield in their first two championship seasons, accepted the offer to manage Arsenal and helped them win three straight championships in the 1930s, dying tragically during the third title winning season. Everton had hit the headlines in 1928 by winning the league championship thanks largely to the record breaking 60 league goals of 21-year-old centre-forward Dixie Dean. He was helped by the new rules of the 1920s, including the allowing of goals from a corner kick, and the relaxing of the offside rule. From 1920 to 1923 the football league expanded further, gaining a new Third Division (expanding quickly to Division Three South and Division Three North), with all leagues now containing twenty two clubs. The national team remained strong, but lost their first game to a non-British Isles country in 1929 (against Spain in Madrid) and refused to compete in the initial World Cups.The 1950's: The end of English dominance
In the immediate post-war years, Manchester United re-emerged as a footballing force under new manager Matt Busby. They won the F.A Cup in 1948 and the league title in 1952. The Busby Babes team - so called as the players were all young, rising through the club's youth system - developed as one of England's finest teams ever, with the likes of Bobby Charlton, Albert Scanlon and Duncan Edwards winning two titles in 1956 and 1957. In February 1958, however, the Munich Air Disaster killed eight of the players, leaving two others unable to play again and Busby in a critical condition, though he continued on to recover and rebuild his Manchester United team. The other dominant team of the era was Wolverhampton Wanderers, winning two league titles and two FA Cups under manager Stan Cullis.English football as a whole, however, began to suffer at this time, with tactical naivety setting in. The national team were humiliated at their first World cup in 1950, famously losing to the USA 1-0. This was followed by two defeats in 1953 to Hungary, who destroyed England 6-3 at home, the first time England had lost at home to a non-British Isles team, and 7-1 in Budapest, England's biggest ever defeat. The early European club competitions also went without much English success, with the FA initially unwilling to allow clubs to compete. No English team reached a European Cup final until 1968, which was the same year that England got their first UEFA Cup success (though English teams (Birmingham City (twice) and a London XI) reached the first three finals of the 'Inter-Fairs' Cup in its formative days).
Early 1960's: English football enters the modern era
The end of the 1950s had seen the beginning of the modernization of English football, with the Divisions Three North and South becoming the national Division Three and Division Four in 1958. 1960 saw the introduction of the League Cup, whilst Matt Busby rebuilt his Manchester United team into a second Busby Babes, starring George Best. It was Tottenham who became the dominant force in English football in the early 1960s, winning the elusive double of the League and FA Cup in 1961, retaining the cup in 1962 and becoming the first British team to win a European trophy, after their 5-1 victory over Atletico de Madrid in 1963. The English national side showed signs of improving with Alf Ramsey taking over as head coach following a respectable quarter final appearance at the 1962 World Cup.Late 1960s and Early 1970s: 1966 and all that
The 1966 World Cup saw the English national team win the World Cup in a controversial 4-2 victory over West Germany, including a hat trick from Geoff Hurst, which is still the only hat trick to be scored in a World Cup final. Bobby Moore was the captain on that day, whilst Munich air crash survivor Bobby Charlton also played. The World Cup as a whole was highly successful, with the successes of the North Korea team, the fouls of the Uruguay team, the skill of Eusébio and the famous quote They think it's all over... it is now entering England's collective memory.The period also saw the first English successes in European club football, begun with Manchester United's 4-1 European Cup victory over SL Benfica, and 's UEFA Cup victory, both in 1968. Indeed, Leeds' win set off a series of 6 consecutive UEFA wins for English clubs, with the 1972 final being held between two of them, Tottenham Hotspur and Wolverhampton Wanderers. During this time, a number of different teams competed for league and cup success. Liverpool - under Bill Shankly - won the league title in 1964 and began to compete with the other dominant sides of the era: Manchester United, West Ham United, Leeds United, Arsenal and Tottenham. By the early 1970s, Liverpool were ahead of the other sides, with Bill Shankly winning a total of 3 league titles, 2 FA Cups and a UEFA Cup. The rise of Brian Clough - who won the league twice with Derby County - helped to stop complete dominance, however.
Late 1970s and Early 1980s: Liverpool's successes and England's failures
The 1970s was an odd decade in English football, with the national team disappointing. They failed to qualify for the 1974 and 1978 World Cups and only made the second round in 1982. English club sides, however, dominated on the continent. Altogether, in the 1970s, English clubs won eight European titles and lost out in four finals; whilst from 1977 to 1984 English clubs won six of the seven European Cups.Liverpool were the dominant team, however, winning league titles in 1976, 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982 and 1983. They also collected three European cups and a number of domestic cup wins. They were led by Bob Paisley, who retired as manager in 1983. Players such as Emlyn Hughes and Alan Hansen helped Liverpool have a solid and reliable side, whose skill and talent was supported by a strong work ethic and the famous boot room identity. The other most successful teams of the era were: Nottingham Forest, led by Brian Clough, who won two successive European cup titles as well as one league championship; and Everton, who took the title twice in the mid 80's, but were denied the opportunity of pressing on for European success by the Heysel ban. Aston Villa also won the European cup, becoming only the fourth English club to do so, in 1982, beating Bayern Munich 1-0 in Rotterdam.
Trevor Francis became Britain's first million-pound rated footballer during this era too.
1979 also saw the formation of the Football Conference. This was the first national league to develop below the Football League, and was the beginning of a formalisation of the English football pyramid. In the 1980s, the Conference began a promotion and relegation relationship with the Fourth Division of the Football League.
The Late 1980s and Early 1990s: Hooliganism but national success
During the 1970s and 1980, the spectre of hooliganism had begun to haunt English football. The Heysel Stadium disaster was the epitome of this, with English hooligans mixing with poor policing and an old stadium to cause the deaths of 39 Juventus fans during the 1985 Champions League final. This led to English teams being banned from European football for five years, and Liverpool - the club involved - being banned for six years. A second disaster involving Liverpool, not related to hooliganism but caused by bad policing, an old stadium and anti-hooligan fences, at Hillsborough killed 96 fans in 1989. These two led to a modernization of English football and English grounds. Efforts were made to remove hooligans from English football, whilst the Taylor Report led to the grounds of all top level clubs becoming all-seater. Such measures have helped reduce the dangers of attending football games.On the field, Liverpool's domination was coming to an end, with Arsenal winning a number of league titles during this time. Their strong defence and negative style of play led them to be labelled 'Boring Arsenal'. England's national team under Bobby Robson also enjoyed success, losing controversially to Argentina in the 1986 World Cup and unluckily on penalties to Germany in the semi-finals of the 1990 World Cup, eventually finishing fourth.
This success for the national team, and the gradually improving grounds, helped to reinvigorate football's popularity. Attendances rose from the late 1980s and continued to do so as football moved into the business era.
The 1990s and early 2000s: The Premier League and Sky Television
The FA Premier League was formed in 1992 when the top twenty two clubs in English football broke away from the football league, in order to increase their incomes and make themselves more competitive on a European stage. By selling TV rights separately to the football league, the clubs increased their income and exposure. The Premier League became the top level of English football, and Division One (later renamed the Football League Championship) fell to the second level.Manchester United were the first Premiership winners and, under Alex Ferguson, dominated during the 1990s. They won five league titles in the 1990s, including two doubles, one league cup, one Cup Winners' Cup and, in 1999, a unique treble: the FA Cup, League and European Cup all in one season. Their success was made even more remarkable by the high number of players who came up simultaneously through their youth system, including the Neville Brothers, Paul Scholes and David Beckham. This success spilled over into the 2000s, as they won three league titles in four years. Blackburn Rovers - lead by start striker Alan Shearer - also won their first league title since before World War One, whilst Arsenal picked up a double in 1998, and Chelsea established themselves amongst the top sides. English football grew wealthier and more popular than ever before, with clubs spending tens of millions of pounds on players and on their wages, which rose to over £100,000 a week for the top stars.
The national team over this period varied in their success, failing to qualify for the 1994 World Cup but reaching the semi-finals in Euro 1996, losing on penalties to Germany at the semi-final stage.
The 2000s: Financial polarization and the Roman Abramovich era
In England, as in Europe in general, the early 2000s saw the financial bubble burst, with the collapse of ITV Digital leaving a hole in the pockets of the football league clubs who had relied on their television money to maintain high wages. Although no football league teams collapsed, many entered administration, including Leicester City and Wrexham. At the same time, the country's richest clubs continued to grow, with the wages of top players increasing.In 2003, Roman Abramovich - a Russian oligarch - purchased Chelsea in a £150m takeover. Abramovich, whose move to England made him the country's richest man (he has since been overtaken), made substantial transfer funds available to manager Claudio Ranieri. After finishing second in 2004, Chelsea won the League Cup and league title under Ranieri's replacement José Mourinho in 2005. In the same season Liverpool achieved a surprise Champions League win in 2005, with a memorable comeback against AC Milan in the final. While Abramovich's money has turned Chelsea into a strong team, they haven't achieved dominance and have won only three of the eight major trohpies they have contested since the takeover.
The England national team during this time became managed by a non-English national for the first time in their history when Sven-Göran Eriksson took charge. He achieved respectable results in international tournaments, going out to eventual winners Brazil in the 2002 World Cup, hosts Portugal in Euro 2004, and Portugal once again on penalties in the 2006 World Cup having reached the quarter-finals. Arguably due to pressure over the lack of actual victories in major tournaments, Eriksson announced his resignation prior to the 2006 World Cup. Steve McClaren was selected by the FA as his replacement, and will take over as manager on 1 August 2006, for a minimum 4 year term.
Seasons in English football
The following articles detail the major results and events in each season since 1871-72, when the first organised competition, the FA Cup, was created.
Wartime seasons, when only unofficial competitions took place, are shown in a darker grey.
References
See also
"Football in England"