The history of the Football League

In 1888, the world’s first Football League competition was established by William McGregor, a director at Aston Villa football club. Originally, there were just 12 League clubs, competing in twin fixtures, at home and away. League football grew, becoming hugely popular. In 1950, passionate fans at over 90 clubs backed their local heroes against all-comers. (See References 5) By 2010, after splits and re-groupings, there were 72 clubs in the League (See References 1) and around 7 million people involved in “the beautiful game” as fans, officials, amateur players or professional ones.(See References 2)

First Season

• The first match played in the Football League was between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Aston Villa. The first goal scored in the new league was during that match – an own goal, conceded by Aston Villa.(See References 1, “1888, the birth…”) Preston North End were the first League champions and did not lose a single game in the 1888 to 89 season. (See References 5)

Expansion

• A rival to the Football League soon appeared: the Football Alliance, which began playing its own fixtures in 1889. The two organisations battled it out for supremacy over the course of three years before merging in 1892, to form a First and Second Division of the League. (See References 1) A Third Division was added in 1919, when teams from the north and south of England were invited to join. By 1923, so many teams had joined the League that it was divided again, this time into four divisions.(See References 1)

Promotion and relegation

• Once the League had acquired divisions, there was scope for promoting or relegating teams. By 1898, a formal system was established, where two teams were promoted by a division and two teams dropped by a division in every season. (See References 1) This brought a new passion and suspense to matches, with supporters concerned not just about who would top the League, but who would stay up, who would go down and who would maintain their position. In 1973, the system was revised so that three teams would face “the drop” and three more the tantalising hope of promotion to a higher division.

Decline

• The 1980s saw a decline in the fortunes of the League, in an era notorious for football hooliganism and marked by tragedies: the deaths of 56 people in a fire at the Valley Parade Stadium in Bradford and of 39 Juventus supporters in the Heysel stadium during crowd trouble that saw English teams banned from European competition. (See References 1)

Legends

• Many footballing greats are remembered for their contribution to the League. Among them is Everton’s “Dixie” Dean, for his record-setting 60 goals in just 39 games in the 1927 to 1928 season. (See References 3) Then there was Manchester United’s inspirational manager Matt Busby, who guided his team to top the League three times in the 1950s and is revered for re-making the squad after eight players were killed in the Berlin Air Disaster of 1958 in which he was badly injured. He went on to win the League twice more, crowning his career in 1968 with the European Cup. (See References 4)

Premier League

• The first broadcast match in the Football League was in 1927. (see References 1) But this was just the start of a relationship with the media which years later led to the fracturing of the League. In 1991, teams in the First Division broke away to form a Premier League of their own, negotiating a lucrative deal for the broadcasting rights with the BBC and BSkyB. The remaining teams in the League regrouped into three tiers of 24 clubs each: the Championship, Division One and Division Two. (See References 5) By 2010, this new-look League had survived financial gloom to find sponsorship and broadcasting deals of its own, (see References 1) once more defying splits to maintain an unbroken tradition of competition stretching back over 120 years.