How many football clubs are in England?
English football league system
The exact number of clubs varies from year to year as clubs join and leave leagues, fold or merge altogether, but an estimated average of 15 clubs per division implies that more than 7,000 teams of nearly 5,300 clubs are members of a league in the English men's football league system.
List of football clubs in England
Notes:
London Welsh F.C.
London Welsh currently operate two football teams, who play home games at the Quentin Hogg Memorial Ground in Chiswick and compete in the Amateur Football Combination. The Amateur Football Combination (AFC) is based in and around London and the Home Counties, and is believed to be the biggest adult football league in Europe. It has around 100 clubs and 350 sides playing Saturday afternoons, and comprises more than 1% of adult male 11-a-side football teams in England. In the 2016-17 season London Welsh's two teams competed in the South 1 and South 5 divisions. After a lean period the 'Welsh' picked up silverware in 2015-16, with the first XI winning the South Division 3 (And being promoted two divisions in a league re-organisation) and the second XI won the A.F.A. Cup.
List of football clubs in England by competitive honours won
Numbers in bold are record totals for that category. Clubs in "italics" are Double winners: they have won two or more of these trophies in the same season (excluding super cups). Trophies that were shared between two clubs are counted as honours for both teams. Clubs tied in total honours are listed chronologically by most recent honour won. See the other tables for breakdowns of each competition won.
English Football League
When the Football League was first established, all 12 clubs played in just one division.
Merseyside derby
The city of Liverpool is statistically the most successful football city in England with Everton and Liverpool winning a combined 27 league titles, and there has never been a season without one of either Everton or Liverpool competing in the top flight. Both clubs have rich histories, with Everton being one of the 12 founder members of the Football League. Everton have only been relegated twice and have competed in over 100 seasons of top-flight football, more than any other English club. To date, Everton have won nine League Championships, five FA Cups and one European Cup Winners Cup. Thus, they have the only UEFA trophy that Liverpool never won.
Liverpool have won the European Cup 5 times, more than any other English club, have eighteen top-flight titles, have the FA Cup on 7 occasions, the Football League Cup a record 8 times, and three UEFA Cups.
History of the English non-League football system
Each of the divisions at Steps 2–4 had a quota of 22 clubs, although the Northern Premier League First Division ran with 24 clubs for this season as part of the future expansion plans. The Conference National was expanded to 24 clubs, the same as the Football League's three divisions.
History of football in England
According to fifa, the world governing body of football, the contemporary history of the game began in 1863 in England, when rugby football and association football "branched off on their different courses" and the English Football Association (the FA) was formed as the sport's first governing body. Until the 19th century, football had been played in various forms using a multiplicity of rules under the general heading of "folk football". From about the 1820s, efforts were made at public schools and at the University of Cambridge to unify the rules. The split into two codes was caused by the issue of handling the ball.
List of unrelegated association football clubs
In still many other instances, new top-tier leagues were created to replace existing national championships. In England, six teams have been present in every season of the Premier League, which was founded in 1992. None of them however had an uninterrupted run in the preceding First Division. Thus, a great number of teams can claim to have never been relegated from these newer competitions. In Scotland, only Celtic and Aberdeen have never been relegated. Rangers were liquidated in 2012 and were subsequently placed in the fourth tier of the Scottish football league system. Similarly, Cliftonville, Glentoran and Linfield have the unique distinction of having played at the top flight in Northern Ireland for 125 years, but five more teams have been present in every season of the NIFL Premiership, which was only established in 2008.
List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries
All widely recognised sovereign states located entirely within Europe are members, with the exceptions of the United Kingdom, Monaco and Vatican City. Eight states partially or entirely outside Europe are also members: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Israel, Cyprus and Turkey. The United Kingdom is divided into the four separate football associations of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales; each association has a separate UEFA membership. The Faroe Islands, an autonomous country of the Kingdom of Denmark, also has its own football association which is a member of UEFA. The football association of Gibraltar, a British Overseas Territory, was approved as a member by UEFA in 2013. Kosovo was approved as a member in 2016, even though it is claimed by Serbia and is not recognised by several other UEFA member states.
Premier League 10 Seasons Awards
Football is the most watched sport in England, and the Premier League along with the FA Cup are the two most prestigious English club football competitions. In 1991, league football in England underwent a major change, when the 22 teams in the First Division, the then top division of The Football League system, resigned en-masse to form the Premier League. Constituted as the Football Association Premier League Ltd, it remained as an official Football Association (The FA) competition at the top of the 'Football Pyramid', but it also now had commercial independence from the Football League, allowing it to negotiate a lucrative broadcasting deal with British Sky Broadcasting, ultimately resulting in a rise in revenues and an increase in the number of foreign players in the league, increasing the profile of the league around the world.
Amateur Football Combination
The Amateur Football Combination is one of the biggest adult football leagues in Europe, with around 100 clubs and 350 sides playing Saturday afternoons in and around London and the Home Counties from September through to May, and comprises more than 1% of adult male 11-a-side football teams in England.
Football in England
There are several cup competitions for clubs at different levels of the football pyramid. The two major cup competitions are the FA Cup and the EFL Cup, with the winners of those competitions qualifying for the UEFA Europa League.
Sport in England
The club competitions in most team sports are also English affairs rather than British ones. There are various anomalies however, such as the participation of the three largest Welsh football clubs in the English league system and an English club in the Scottish Football League.
History of football in England
A key issue facing the professional clubs was the lack of competitive matches. This was especially so for teams that had been knocked out of the FA Cup. It was self–evident that crowds for friendly fixtures were much lower and of course this meant a reduction in revenue and consequent struggle to pay wages. Aston Villa’s Scottish director William McGregor sought a solution by asking the other professional clubs to arrange annual home and away fixtures on a competitive basis, with points to be awarded for winning and drawing. Following a conference between club directors on 23 March 1888, the English Football League was founded on 17 April 1888 as one division of 12 clubs: Accrington (founded in 1876; folded in 1896), Aston Villa (founded in 1874), Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley (founded in 1882), Derby County (founded in 1884), Everton (founded in 1878), Notts County, Preston North End (founded in 1880), Stoke F.C. (founded in 1863; became Stoke City in 1925), West Bromwich Albion (founded in 1878) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (founded in 1877; always commonly known as "Wolves"). Six of the clubs were in Lancashire and six in the Midlands so, at this time, there were none from Yorkshire or the north-east or anywhere south of Birmingham. 1888–89 was the Football League’s inaugural season and Preston North End earned the nickname of “Invincibles” by going through the entire 22–match league competition unbeaten. They also won the FA Cup and so recorded the world's first “double”. Preston retained their league title in 1889–90 and Blackburn won the FA Cup.
Premier League
The Premier League sends representatives to UEFA's European Club Association, the number of clubs and the clubs themselves chosen according to UEFA coefficients. For the 2012–13 season the Premier League has 10 representatives in the Association: Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Fulham, Liverpool, Manchester City, Manchester United, Newcastle United and Tottenham Hotspur. The European Club Association is responsible for electing three members to UEFA's Club Competitions Committee, which is involved in the operations of UEFA competitions such as the Champions League and UEFA Europa League.
Football in England
The Central League was formed in 1911 and currently has 28 teams, split into three divisions – Central, North and South. The winners of each division and the best runner-up compete in the end-of-season play-offs to decide the league champions. Whilst the Central League is for Football League reserve teams, The West Division contains a Manchester City side which uses a mix of reserve team and youth team squad players and in 2007–08 they were Central League champions. The Central League also organises the Central League Cup, although not all clubs enter the cup.
Football in England
Many club sides have youth teams. The top level of youth football is the Premier Academy League, founded in 1997, which is for all Premier League and Football League clubs that have Academy sides. The league, which currently has 40 clubs, is divided into four groups each with ten teams. The winners of each group contest the end-of-season play-offs to decide the league champions.
Professional sports league organization
Football in England developed a very different system from the North American one, and it has been adopted for football in most other European countries, as well as to many other sports founded in Europe and played across the world. The features of the system are:European football clubs are members both of a league and of a governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League, a separate organization. The 72 teams in the three levels below the Premier League are members of still another body, the English Football League. The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues (except the EFL Cup, operated by the English Football League and open to its own teams and those in the Premier League). In conjunction with FIFA and other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs.
English football league system
The top five levels contain one division each and are nationwide in scope. Below this, the levels have progressively more parallel leagues, with each covering progressively smaller geographic areas. Many leagues have more than one division. At the lower levels the existence of leagues becomes intermittent, although in some of the more densely populated areas there are leagues more than twenty layers below the Premier League. There are also leagues in various parts of the country which are not officially part of the system as they do not have formal agreements with other leagues, but are recognised at various levels by county football associations. Clubs from these leagues may, if they feel they meet the appropriate standard of play and have suitable facilities, apply to join a league which does form part of the system.
National League (English football)
The National League has 24 clubs and the North and South divisions have 22 clubs each. Each club plays the others in its division twice during a season, once at home and once away. Clubs earn three points for a win, one for a draw, and none for a defeat.
Football in the United Kingdom
The English football league system includes hundreds of interlinked leagues, consisting of thousands of divisions. The Premier League is at the top, followed by The Football League and then the Football Conference, where the structure starts to become regional and includes the Northern Premier League, the Southern League, the Isthmian League and many more besides. The Welsh clubs of Cardiff City, Colwyn Bay, Merthyr Tydfil, Newport County, Swansea City and Wrexham play in the English system. Chester City, who played in The Football League until they dissolved in 2010, had a stadium that straddles the Welsh border, with the Club offices in England but the pitch actually in Wales.
Football in England
In the 1920–21 season the Football League was expanded, with the new Third Division, which expanded the league south of Birmingham, which until then had been sparsely represented in the Football League. Each division had 22 clubs. The next season the league was again expanded with the Third Division divided into North (with 20 clubs) and South (with 22 clubs) sections, making a total of 86 clubs in the Football League. In the 1923–24 season the Third Division North was expanded to 22 clubs, making a total of 88 league clubs.
England
At club level, England is recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, due to Sheffield F.C. founded in 1857 being the world's oldest club. The Football Association is the oldest governing body in the sport, with the rules of football first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley. The FA Cup and The Football League were the first cup and league competitions respectively. In the modern day, the Premier League is the world's most-watched football league, most lucrative, and amongst the elite.
Social history of the United Kingdom (1945–present)
The most popular sport in the UK became association football; Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club still in existence to the present day. The home nations all have separate national teams and domestic competitions, most notably England's Premier League and FA Cup, and the Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup. Referred to as the "home of football" by the international governing body FIFA, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. The English Premier League (formed in 1992 by member clubs of the old Football League First Division) is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers also have a wide global fanbase.
Futsal in England
The FA Futsal League began in 2008 and currently features 23 teams in 3 conferences; 8 in the Northern Conference, 7 in the Midlands Conference and 8 in the Southern Conference. It is the highest level of futsal within England, with the winners and runners-up of the 3 conferences advancing to an end of season tournament to determine the national champions and England's representatives in the UEFA Futsal Cup.
Football at the Summer Olympics
Football in the United Kingdom has no single governing body, and there are separate teams for the UK's four Home Nations: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Only the English Football Association (FA) is affiliated to the British Olympic Association (BOA), and the FA entered "Great Britain" teams to the football tournaments until 1972. In 1974, the FA abolished the distinction between "amateur" and "professional" football, and stopped entering the Olympics. Even though FIFA has allowed professionals at the Olympics since 1984, the FA did not re-enter, as the Home Nations feared that a united British Olympic team would set a precedent that might cause FIFA to question their separate status in other FIFA competitions and on the International Football Association Board.
History of football in England
The world's oldest football clubs were founded in England from 1789 and, in the 1871–72 season, the FA Cup was founded as the world's first organised competition. The first international match took place in November 1872 when England travelled to Glasgow to play Scotland. The quality of Scottish players was such that northern English clubs began offering them professional terms to move south. At first, the FA was strongly opposed to professionalism and that gave rise to a bitter dispute from 1880 until the FA relented and formally legitimised professionalism in 1885. A shortage of competitive matches led to the formation of the Football League by twelve professional clubs in 1888 and the domestic game has ever since then been based on the foundation of league and cup football.
Women's professional sports
In England, the top competition of women's football, the FA Women's Super League, is professional, as of the 2018-19 season. The major women's clubs competing are affiliates of male club counterparts, usually bearing the same names with the acronyms LFC or WFC, but they do not share the same large stadiums, instead renting smaller stadiums from lower-level clubs (no women's club actually owns their stadium). The competition is semi-professional, meaning that the players are paid above the old maximum for professionals but rely on part-time jobs or schooling outside the game. Full professionalism has been tried, mostly on the part of individual teams (Fulham L.F.C. was the first side to go full pro, but was downgraded later by the owners), but it will take years to develop a fully professionalised women's league in England. Backing by a male club does not necessarily equal success, and the level of success achieved by male clubs may be reversed in female counterparts (compare these local derbies: Aston Villa vs. Birmingham City; Bristol City vs. Bristol Rovers; Liverpool vs. Everton; and Sunderland vs. Newcastle United).
National League System
The National League System comprises the seven levels of the English football league system immediately below the level of the English Football League. It contains 84 league competitions and more than 1,600 clubs. It comes under the jurisdiction of The Football Association. The National League System has a hierarchical format with promotion and relegation between leagues at different levels. For details of leagues above and below the National League System, see the English football league system.
The 92 Club
The 92 Club is a society, in order to be a member of which a person must attend an association football game at the stadium of every current Premier League and Football League club in England and Wales.
The 'club' takes its name from the fact that there are 92 teams in the English professional league tier. The list of stadiums changes each year, as clubs are promoted and relegated in and out of the English Football League, and other clubs move to new stadiums.
List of England international footballers
The England national football team represents the country of England in international association football. It is fielded by The Football Association, the governing body of football in England, and competes as a member of the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), which encompasses the countries of Europe. England competed in the first ever official international football match on 30 November 1872, a 0–0 draw with Scotland at Hamilton Crescent.
Sport in the United Kingdom
American football is a minor amateur sport, with two League associations BAFA National Leagues and BAUFL (University league). The BAFA League has 3 divisions: Premier, 1 and 2, with Premier and 1 divided into a North and South conference (with Coventry being the Most Southern of the Northern teams) while division 2 is further split into 4 conferences, North becoming North (Scotland and Carlisle) and Central and the South being split into East and West. The Championship participants are promoted to the divisions above and the lowest-ranking teams in each division are relegated. Previously, many of these teams competed in the BAFL which entered administration in 2010. The national team is known as the GB Lions and represents the United Kingdom in international gridiron. Formed in 1991 the London Monarchs played in NFL Europe. With attendances slumping to an average of 5,944 the Monarchs became defunct seven years later, and with the league making a reported $30 million loss per season the NFL announced the end of NFL Europe in 2007.
Football in England
The English Football League, established in 1888 as The Football League by Aston Villa director William McGregor and renamed "English Football League" in 2016, was the first professional football league in the world. Since its founding, however, many other leagues have been founded in England. Sunday leagues are played each weekend by clubs, the study made by the FA sees to this. Over the 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. In a study made by FIFA in 2006 there are around 40,000 clubs registered with the FA, which is 11,000 more than any other country, the closest being the Brazilian Football Confederation who have 29,000 registered clubs. Even without taking relative population into account, England has more football clubs than any other country in the world.
The Football Association
Eleven London football clubs and schools representatives met on 26 October 1863 to agree on common rules. The founding clubs present at the first meeting were Barnes, Civil Service, Crusaders, Forest of Leytonstone (later to become Wanderers F.C.), N.N. (No Names) Club (Kilburn), the original Crystal Palace, Blackheath, Kensington School, Perceval House (Blackheath), Surbiton and Blackheath Proprietary School; Charterhouse sent their captain, B.F. Hartshorne, but declined the offer to join. Many of these clubs are now defunct or play rugby union. Civil Service FC, who now plays in the Southern Amateur League, is the only one of the original eleven football clubs still in existence and playing Association Football. There are only three institutions which have been continuous members of the F.A. since 1863, those being Civil Service, Forest School and King's College School, Wimbledon.
Football in England
The various County Football Associations, which are based roughly on the historic county boundaries, are the local governing bodies of football in England. They govern all aspects of Sunday league football. Not all County Football Associations are run on county basis. Each armed service has one, for instance such as the Army Football Association which administers football within the British Army.
The Amateur Football Alliance (AFA) is the largest organised amateur competition, being particularly strong in the London area. The AFA is also a County Football Association and as such governs leagues such as the Arthurian League which contains two former FA Cup winners, Old Etonians who won the FA Cup twice, in 1879 and 1882 as well as Old Carthusians who were FA Cup winners in 1881.
Football in England
The Football League was consequently reorganised, with the Second, Third and Fourth Divisions renamed as the First, Second and Third Divisions respectively. Thus, the First Division, while still the top level of the Football League, became the second level of the entire English football league system with the top clubs inheriting the promotion play-off system from the old Second Division. The Premier League was reduced to 20 teams after the 1994-95 season. The Premier League has been won by 6 clubs in its 24 seasons, with Manchester United winning on 13 occasions. They have set many precedents in the process, becoming the first team to win a second double of the league title and FA Cup in 1996 (their first double being won in 1994), and in 1999 they won a unique treble of the league title, FA Cup and European Cup.
Culture of England
The rules of football were first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley, and England has the oldest football clubs in the world. Recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club. The first ever international football match was between England and Scotland in 1872. Referred to by the sport's governing body FIFA as the "home of football", England hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup, and won the tournament. With a 32.3 million viewing audience, the 1966 final is the most watched television event ever in the United Kingdom. The English Barclays Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. In 2016, Leicester City, who were 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, became champions. By some measures it was the greatest sporting upset ever: multiple bookmakers had never paid out at such long odds for any sport. As is the case throughout the UK, football in England is renowned for the intense rivalries between clubs and the passion of the supporters, which includes a tradition of football chants, such as, "You're Not Singing Any More" (or its variant "We Can See You Sneaking Out!"), sung by jubilant fans towards the opposition fans who have gone silent (or left early).
The modern game of lawn tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the 1860s, and after its creation, tennis spread throughout the upper-class English-speaking population, before spreading around the world. Major Walter Clopton Wingfield is credited as being a pioneer of the game. The world's oldest tennis tournament, the Wimbledon championships, first occurred in 1877, and today the event takes place over two weeks in late June and early July. Created in the Tudor period in the court of Henry VIII, the English dessert strawberries and cream is synonymous with the British summer, and is famously consumed at Wimbledon.
List of football stadiums in England
This is a list of football stadiums in England, ranked in descending order of capacity. There is an extremely large number of football stadiums and pitches in England, so this list is not complete. It includes:A person who has watched a match at the stadiums of all 92 Premier League and Football League clubs in England and Wales may apply to join The 92 Club.
Northern England
In 1883 Blackburn Olympic, a team composed mainly of factory workers, became the first Northern team to win the FA Cup, and the next year Preston North End won an FA Cup match against London-based Upton Park. Upton Park protested that Preston had broken FA rules by paying their players. In response, Preston withdrew from the competition and fellow Lancashire clubs Burnley and Great Lever followed suit. The protest gathered momentum to the point where more than 30 clubs, predominantly from the North, announced that they would set up a rival British Football Association if the FA did not permit professionalism. A schism was avoided in July 1885 when professionalism was formally legalised in English football. The Football League was founded in 1888, and marked its independence from the London-based Football Association (FA) by establishing headquarters in Preston – the League retained a Northern identity even after it accepted several Southern teams into its ranks. Organised women's football followed as the workforces of majority-female factories of Northern England in the First World War entered the 1917–18 Tyne, Wear & Tees Munition Girls Cup – the world's first women's football tournament. However, the FA did not support women's football and banned it altogether in 1921. Intense local derbies between neighbouring teams mean that there is less of a North–South rivalry than in some other sports.
Many of the powerhouses of English football came from the North – as of the 2017–18 season, of the 120 top-flight league titles since 1888, 80 (67%) have been won by teams based north of Crewe. Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United and, since 2001, Manchester City are among the mainstays of the Premier League, while teams like Blackburn Rovers, Middlesbrough, Newcastle United and Sunderland have had more inconsistent runs in recent years, regularly being promoted and relegated from the top flight. Northern England is also the birthplace of the largest proportion the country's top players – as of Euro 2016, 537 Northerners had played for the England team, compared to 266 Midlanders and 367 Southerners, and 15 of the 23 man squad for the 2018 World Cup were born in the region.
Sport in the United Kingdom
There are eighteen professional county clubs, seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. Each summer the county clubs compete in the first class County Championship, which consists of two leagues of nine teams and in which matches are played over four days. The same teams also play the one day National League, a one-day knock out competition called the Friends Provident Trophy, and the short-form Twenty20 Cup. English cricket grounds include Lord's, The Oval, Headingley, Old Trafford, Edgbaston and Trent Bridge. Cardiff's Sophia Gardens ground has also become increasingly popular in recent years. Team members are drawn from the main county sides, and include both English and Welsh players. It is by no means equal to football in finance, attendance or coverage, but it has a high profile nonetheless. It is probably the second most widely covered sport in England and third most widely covered sport in Wales and the fortunes of the England team are closely followed by many people who never attend a live game.
United Kingdom
A 2003 poll found that football is the most popular sport in the United Kingdom. England is recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, and The Football Association is the oldest of its kind, with the rules of football first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley. Each of the Home Nations has its own football association, national team and league system. The English top division, the Premier League, is the most watched football league in the world. The first international football match was contested by England and Scotland on 30 November 1872. England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland usually compete as separate countries in international competitions.
In 2003, rugby union was ranked the second most popular sport in the UK. The sport was created in Rugby School, Warwickshire, and the first rugby international took place on 27 March 1871 between England and Scotland. England, Scotland, Wales, Ireland, France and Italy compete in the Six Nations Championship; the premier international tournament in the northern hemisphere. Sport governing bodies in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland organise and regulate the game separately.
List of English football champions
There are 24 clubs who have won the English title.
List of football clubs in England by competitive honours won
This page lists English association football clubs whose men's sides have won competitive honours run by official governing bodies. Friendly competitions and matches organized between clubs are not included. The football associations FIFA and UEFA run international and European competitions; and The Football Association, and its mostly self-governing subsidiary bodies the English Football League and Premier League, runs national competitions. County Football Associations organise regional competitions, but all full list of their honours is not provided in this article.
Cricket in England
Cricket is also one of the most popular participation sports in England after Football, Rugby and Tennis with most villages running a side every Sunday through the season, and towns putting out 2, 3, 4 and occasionally 5 sides for Saturday league matches, and 1 or 2 sides on a Sunday. Around 65% population of England follow Cricket. The game is also popular in cities, with clubs like the King's Road Cricket & Social Club attracting members.
English football league system
At the top is the single division of the Premier League (Level 1, which is often referred to as the "top flight"), containing 20 clubs, all of which, up to the 2010–11 season, were based in England. However, two Welsh teams (Swansea City and Cardiff City) have since played in the league. Below the Premier League is the English Football League (EFL), which is divided into three divisions of 24 clubs each: The Championship (Level 2), League One (Level 3) and League Two (Level 4). The 92 clubs in the Premier League and English Football League are all full-time professional clubs. They are often referred to as 'League' clubs because, before the establishment of the Premier League in 1992, the EFL included all 92 clubs, in four divisions. Clubs outside this group are referred to as 'non-League' clubs, although they too play most of their football in league-type competitions.
Non-League football
The "League" of "non-League football" refers to the English Football League, rather than leagues in general — "non-League" clubs play most of their football in league competitions. There are many leagues below the level of the EFL, and some, such as the Northern League, are almost as old as the EFL itself. The most senior of these leagues are loosely organised by The Football Association, the sport's governing body in England, into a National League System (NLS). The NLS has seven levels or "steps", and includes over 50 separate leagues, many with more than one division.
Football in England
Below the EFL is what is commonly known as "nonleague", examples include Bath City and FC Halifax Town. This term can be confusing, as it refers to those clubs outside the EFL, 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. Most clubs in the top flight of the NLS, the National League division, are fully professional; the remainder are semi-professional.
National League (English football)
Most of the National League clubs are fully professional, while most National League North and National League South clubs are semi-professional. The professional clubs are sometimes clubs which have been in the English Football League (EFL) in the past, as opposed to those which have always been non-League. The National League is the lowest of the five nationwide football divisions in England, below the Premier League and the three divisions of the EFL, and is the top tier of the National League System of non-League football. The National League North and National League South form the sixth tier of English football. The National League consisted of only one division until 2004, but expanded as part of an extensive restructuring of the National League System which took effect beginning with the 2004–05 season.
List of American football teams in the United Kingdom
The senior league's membership comprises 68 teams based in towns ranging from Newquay in the south of England to Aberdeen in Scotland. The league is split into two regional conferences; the Southern Football Conference (SFC) and the Northern Football Conference (NFC). The teams within each conference are spread across three tiers with promotion and relegation between each level. The bottom two tiers are further divided into regional conferences. The top-ranking teams in each division compete in playoffs culminating in divisional finals—the championship game contested by the top Premier Division teams is known as the BritBowl. The 2017 champions are the Tamworth Phoenix, who defeated the London Blitz 34–28 in the final held at the Sixways Stadium.
Sport in the United Kingdom
The modern global game of football evolved out of traditional football games played in England in the 19th century and today is the highest profile sport in the United Kingdom by a very wide margin. This has been the case for generations, but the gap is widely perceived to have increased since the early 1990s, and football's dominance is often seen as a threat to other sports. Each of the four countries in the UK organises its own football league; there are however a few teams who play in another country.
1888–89 in English football
The Football League is still going today and now has 72 clubs in three divisions (down from an all-time high of 92 clubs in four divisions). Since the 1992–93 season, it has become only the second-most important league competition, behind the FA Premier League in the English football league system.England finished second in the 1889 British Home Championship, which was won by Scotland.
The Football Association
All of England's professional football teams are members of the Football Association. Although it does not run the day-to-day operations of the Premier League, it has veto power over the appointment of the League Chairman and Chief Executive and over any changes to league rules. The English Football League, made up of the three fully professional divisions below the Premier League, is self-governing, subject to the FA's sanctions.
Football in England
The England national football team represents England in international football. It is one of the two oldest national football teams in the world, the other one being Scotland. England is one of only eight national teams to have won the World Cup and did this in 1966. They are one of the more prominent teams on the global stage, rarely dropping outside of the top ten rankings of both FIFA and Elo. They were the most successful of the Home Nations in the British Home Championship with 54 wins (including 20 shared wins) before the competition was suspended in 1984.
Football in England
In 1314, Edward II, then the King of England, said about a sport of football and the use of footballs, "certain tumults arising from great footballs in the fields of the public, from which many evils may arise." An account of an exclusively kicking "football" game from Nottinghamshire in the fifteenth century bears similarity to association football. By the 16th centuries references to organised teams and goals had appeared. There is evidence for refereed, team football games being played in English schools since at least 1581. The eighteenth-century Gymnastic Society of London is, arguably, the world's first football club.
History of football in England
The Premier League was decreased from 22 to 20 clubs in 1995.
American football in the United Kingdom
In February 1984, a meeting at the Post House Hotel in Bedford saw representatives of 35 teams meet to discuss the formation of an association. 26 teams attended a second meeting, and this saw the formation of two leagues – the British American Football Federation (BAFF) and the American Football League United Kingdom (AFLUK) – and soon there would be over 40 teams competing in fully kitted football. However, in part due to the recession, players and teams struggled for funding.
National League System
At the top of the National League System pyramid is the National League. Its top division, also called the National League (currently called the Vanarama National League), is the only division in the System which is organised on a national rather than regional basis. Although the National League is the top level of the non-league pyramid, it is not the highest level of English football (it is actually the fifth overall division). The Premier League and the three divisions of the English Football League (EFL) comprise the top 92 clubs in the English game, and two teams from the National League are currently able to achieve promotion to the English Football League. Some leagues have more than one division. At the lower levels the existence of leagues becomes intermittent, although in some areas there are as many as twenty layers.
Bowls England
There are thirty-five affiliated county bowling associations, to which a total of 2,700 clubs are in membership nationwide. Approximately 132,000 players come under the jurisdiction of this association.
Sport in England
English football has a league system which incorporates thousands of clubs, and is topped by four fully professional divisions. The elite Premier League has 20 teams and is the richest football league in the world. The other three fully professional divisions are the run by the English Football League, the oldest league in the world, and include another 72 clubs. Annual promotion and relegation operates between these four divisions and also between the lowest of them and lower level or "non-League" football. There are a small number of fully professional clubs outside the top four divisions, and many more semi-professional clubs. Thus England has over a hundred fully professional clubs in total, which is considerably more than any other country in Europe.
England women's national rugby union team
In 1994 the Rugby Football Union for Women (RFUW) was formed in England with each of the Home Nations governing their own countries. The RFUW currently has over 410 Clubs: 170 Senior clubs, 80 student sides, 29 Under 18’s sides, 103 Under 16’s sides, and 40 Schools. These clubs are slotted into regions, these being: North West, North East, Yorkshire & Humber, East Midlands, West Midlands, Eastern Counties, London & South East North, South East South, South West (North) and South West (South).
FA Cup
The competition is open to any eligible club down to Level 10 of the English football league system – all 92 professional clubs in the Premier League (Level 1) and the English Football League (Levels 2 to 4), and several hundred "non-league" teams in Steps 1 to 6 of the National League System (Levels 5 to 10). A record 763 clubs competed in 2011–12. The tournament consists of 12 randomly drawn rounds followed by the semi-finals and the final. Entrants are not seeded, although a system of byes based on league level ensures higher ranked teams enter in later rounds – the minimum number of games needed to win, depending on which round a team enters the competition, ranges from six to fourteen.
Premier League–Football League gulf
In English football, a gulf has arisen between the finances of clubs from the Premier League and English Football League since the First Division clubs broke away to form the Premier League in 1992. Some have argued that this disparity is wider than in other European leagues where the top flight is combined with at least one division below in a league, such as Germany's Bundesliga, Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga. However, England has five tiers of single national divisions, compared to only two in Spain and Italy and three in Germany.
Football in England
From the 2015–16 season, the various permutations allow for a maximum of five English clubs to qualify for the UEFA Champions League and five for the UEFA Europa League. From the 2018-19 season, the top four clubs in Europe's four highest ranked leagues will qualify directly to the group stages. These leagues are currently England, Germany, Italy, and Spain. The minimum quota is for four English clubs to qualify for the UEFA Champions League and three for the UEFA Europa League.
Football in Yorkshire
Football in Yorkshire refers to the sport of association football in relation to its participation and history within Yorkshire, England. The county is the largest in the United Kingdom and as thus has many football clubs professional and amateur.
Liverpool F.C.
Liverpool Football Club is a professional football club in Liverpool, England, that competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club has won 5 European Cups, more than any other English club, 3 UEFA Cups, 3 UEFA Super Cups, 18 League titles, 7 FA Cups, a record 8 League Cups, and 15 FA Community Shields.
English Football League
The Football League consists of 70 professional association football clubs in England and 2 in Wales. It runs the oldest professional football league competition in the world. It also organises two knockout cup competitions, the EFL Cup and EFL Trophy. The Football League was founded in 1888 by then Aston Villa director William McGregor, originally with 12 member clubs. Steady growth and the addition of more divisions meant that by 1950 the League had 92 clubs. Financial considerations led to a major shake-up in 1992 when, in a step to maximise their revenue, the leading members of the Football League broke away to form their own competition, the FA Premier League, which was renamed in 2007 as the Premier League. The Football League therefore no longer includes the top 20 clubs who belong to this group, although promotion and relegation between the Football League and the Premier League continues. In total, 136 teams have played in the Football League up to 2013 (including those in the Premier League, since clubs must pass through the Football League before reaching the former).
BAFA National Leagues
The BAFA National Leagues (BAFANL, formerly the BAFA Community Leagues) are the primary American football competition in England, Scotland and Wales. They were formed by the British American Football Association in 2010 following the collapse of the British American Football League to coordinate contact football within Great Britain. There are currently 62 teams who compete in 12 divisions across three levels of football. The 10 teams who contest both the Premier Division North and South compete to reach the Britbowl. The current champions are the London Warriors and are also the most successful having won 5 titles. BAFA also operate a flag football, Women's division as well as a Youth league across all age ranges.
Sport in Europe
Clubs therefore had an equal chance to grow to become among the strongest in their particular sport which has led to a situation where many large cities are represented by multiple top class teams in the same sport. In the 2016–17 football season, London has five teams playing in the Premier League, while Liverpool and Manchester also have double representation. Other large European cities like Rome, Milan, Madrid, Rotterdam and Barcelona have multiple first division clubs.
Football in the United Kingdom
England is home to the Premier League which has become one of the best leagues in the world, attracting viewers from various countries around the globe. The Champions League final in 2010 was the first final in six years that did not feature an English team. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, three out of the four teams in the semi-finals were English. In May 2008 Manchester United and Chelsea played in the first ever all-English final, which Manchester United won on penalties.
List of football clubs in England by competitive honours won
English football also has a network of regional governing bodies known as County Football Associations. These associations are roughly based around county lines, although some cover multiple counties or the boundaries of major cities. They generally have a Senior Cup, such as the Kent Senior Cup or Middlesex Senior Cup, as their premier competition for men's clubs. In some cases, such as the Kent and Middlesex Senior Cups, these involve the senior first-teams of lower-division or regional-division clubs; in other cases it can have other formats, such as the Manchester Senior Cup, which became a reserve team competition for six large clubs from the region. In the years when league football was unavailable or only available to northern and midlands clubs, the Senior Cups coexisted with the FA Cup as the main tournaments for clubs.
Sport in England
The top level league is the 12-team Super League, which was reduced from 14 teams due to a major reorganisation of the professional leagues in 2015. Eleven teams are based in the heartlands, with the other team in France. Below Super League are the Championship, also with 12 teams, and League 1, with 14 teams. As of the next season in 2018, the Championship has nine teams from the heartlands and one each from London, France and Canada; League 1 has nine heartland teams, three scattered throughout the remainder of England, and two from Wales.
England national youth football team
The England national youth football teams are a group of six teams that represents England in association football at various specific age levels, ranging from under-16 to under-21. All of the teams are controlled by the Football Association, the governing body for football in England.
List of current Premier League and English Football League managers
There are 92 association football teams in the top four tiers of English football, all of which have a manager, or pair of joint managers, sometimes given the alternative title of head coach. The Premier League and the English Football League are the only fully professional football leagues in England. The Premier League consists of 20 clubs at the top of the English football league system. The remaining 72 clubs are split into the three divisions of the English Football League: the Championship, League One and League Two.
List of Premier League seasons
The Premier League is an English professional league for association football clubs. At the top of the English football league system, it is the country's primary football competition and is contested by 20 clubs. Seasons run from August to May, with teams playing 38 matches each, totalling 380 matches in the season. Most games are played on Saturdays and Sundays, with games also played on certain weekday evenings.
FIFA eligibility rules
Due to the United Kingdom's position in world football as a sovereign state that has four national teams, there has been a series of additional agreements between national football associations of the United Kingdom; England (FA), Scotland (SFA), Wales (FAW) and Northern Ireland (IFA). The latest agreement came in 2010 and was ratified by FIFA.
List of former English Football League clubs
The English Football League comprises professional football clubs from England and Wales. It was established in 1888 as The Football League and in 1892 the Second Division was formed, with the existing division being renamed the First Division. The First World War caused the League to be postponed from 1915 to 1919 and two seasons following its resumption a Third Division was introduced for one season, before being regionalised as North and South. The 1958–59 season saw the introduction of a Fourth Division, with the top 12 clubs from the Third Division North and South from the previous season starting in a national Third Division, and the bottom 12 starting in the Fourth Division. The introduction of the Premier League, which superseded the First Division as the top-flight of English football, caused a reorganisation of the English football league system in 1992, with the Fourth Division being disbanded. The First Division, Second Division and Third Division were rebranded as the Championship, League One and League Two respectively ahead of the 2004–05 season, which came as part of a then-sponsorship with Coca-Cola.
Football Mundial
Football Mundial is the governing body of over 180 local five-a-side and six-a-side football leagues in England, Wales, and Scotland. It is registered with the Football Association.
The Football Association
The FA is a member of both UEFA and FIFA and holds a permanent seat on the International Football Association Board (IFAB) which is responsible for the Laws of the Game. As the first football association, it does not use the national name "English" in its title. The FA is based at Wembley Stadium, London. The FA is a member of the British Olympic Association, meaning that the FA has control over the men's and women's Great Britain Olympic football team.
Sport in England
From 2009 through to 2014, Super League consisted of 14 franchises, based on renewable three-year licences, but that system was scrapped following the 2014 season. The main knock-out competition is the Challenge Cup, which also includes clubs from France, Canada, Wales and Scotland (plus, in the past, Russia) and each year culminates in a history-steeped final at Wembley Stadium. There is a secondary knock-out competition called the Championship Cup for teams in the Championships.
Sport in the Isle of Man
Association football is also popular, with the Isle of Man Football Association running a league of 27 clubs in two divisions, as well as a football combination for the reserve teams of the league clubs. There is also a national football team and Ellan Vannin team, although they do not participate in UEFA or FIFA tournaments. The Isle of Man Football Association has the status of a County Football Association within the English Football Association so is therefore represented by the England national football team. People born in the Isle of Man are eligible to play for England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland
English Football League
Following the breakaway of the 22 clubs in the First Division to form the FA Premier League, the Football League no longer included the top division in England, and the Football League champions were no longer the national champions of England. Therefore, the Second Division became the First Division, the Third Division became the Second Division and the Fourth Division became the Third Division.
English football clubs in international competitions
This 67% success rate compares favourably with the all-time European average of 53.6% success - having participated in 57, and won 31 (having won 21 out of 43 Intercontinental Cups - see table here, and 10 out of 14 FIFA Club World Cups - see table here). It also compares favourably with the European average in the Premier League era (1993 onwards) of 69.2% success - having participated in 26 (12 Intercontinental Cups from 1993 to 2004 - full details here, 14 FIFA Club World Cups - full details here), and won 18 (8 Intercontinental Cups in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2004, and 10 FIFA Club World Cups in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013).
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Football in England
The League expanded over the next 25 years as football boomed in England, from one division of twelve clubs in 1888, to two divisions by the 1892–93 season, with a total of 28 clubs and with the gradual addition of more clubs, a total of 40 by 1905–06. It remained at 40 until the league was suspended after the 1914–15 season with the outbreak of World War I. During this time clubs from the North and Midlands dominated, with Aston Villa, Sunderland, The Wednesday (later renamed Sheffield Wednesday) and Newcastle United all winning three or more league titles in the period leading up to World War I. Other clubs to win league titles in this period include Sheffield United, Manchester United and Everton. London-based clubs enjoyed little success during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with the first major trophy being won by a London-based club being Tottenham Hotspur's FA Cup triumph in 1901, when they were still a Southern Football League club, although they were elected to the Football League soon after.
Football in England
As with the men's game, the league is organised into a pyramid system. It has nine levels, with the semi-professional FA WSL, launched in 2011, at the top. Unlike the men's pyramid and the lower levels of the women's pyramid, there will be no promotion from or relegation to the former top level, the FA Women's Premier League National Division, until at least the end of the 2012 WSL season. Doncaster Rovers Belles LFC (previously Doncaster Belles LFC) were founded in 1969 and are one of the most successful clubs in England. They are one of only two clubs outside London to have won the FA Women's Premier League National, the other team being Everton LFC. The Belles have also won the FA Women's Cup six times and been runners-up seven times. Fulham LFC were for a number of years the top club in England and were the first club in Europe to turn professional in 2000 before reverting to semi-professional in 2003. Doncaster Rovers Belles and Everton have since become charter members of the WSL.
EFL Trophy
The EFL Trophy (English Football League Trophy) is an annual English association football knockout competition open to the 48 clubs in EFL League One and EFL League Two, the third and fourth tiers of the English football league system and, since the 2016–17 season, 16 under-21 sides from Premier League and EFL Championship clubs. It is the third most prestigious knockout trophy in English football after the FA Cup and EFL Cup (League Cup).
English Football League
There were few major changes to the structure Football League in the 12 seasons which followed the breakaway that created the FA Premier League, perhaps the only notable changes being an expansion to 72 clubs from 70 for the 1995–96 season after the Premier League was streamlined to 20 clubs from 22, and the introduction of a second relegation place to the Football Conference from the end of the 2002–03 season.
Football in England
In the 1991–92 season, following two years of widespread speculation about the leading clubs of English football forming a breakaway league from the Football League, the 22 clubs competing in the First Division resigned "en masse" from the Football League, forming a new top-level competition, The FA Premier League, overseen by the FA, largely to capitalise upon their status as the biggest and most wealthy clubs in the country, and negotiate more profitable television rights.
Australian rules football in England
In 2004, there were a total of around 435 senior players across 18 clubs in England. The local league has a higher number of ex-patriate Australians compared to other countries that participate in the sport, however the league recently put in place caps on the number of expatriate players in certain divisions to improve the mix and encourage more local players.
Sport in the United Kingdom
Many of the best stadia in the United Kingdom were built for national teams:British football grounds are almost always football-only facilities in which the spectators are close to the action. Since the late 1980s there has been a dramatic spurt of reconstruction and replacement of league grounds, which is ongoing, and the Premier League's facilities are among the best of any sports league. As of early 2019 there are nearly 40 all-seater club grounds in England with a capacity of 25,000 or more, three in Scotland and two in Wales. The largest is Manchester United's Old Trafford, which has a capacity of over 76,000 and the most recently built football stadia in the Premier League include the Emirates Stadium and the City of Manchester Stadium, with the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium set to open at some point in 2019.
Football in England
The second tier youth league is the Football League Youth Alliance, also founded in 1997, in which those Football League clubs that have Centres of Excellence status field their youth teams. The league, which currently has 58 clubs, is divided into four regional conference leagues. The Youth Alliance also operate the annual Youth Alliance Cup.
Sport in England
The two main cup competitions in England are the FA Cup, which is open to clubs down to Level 10 of the English football pyramid structure; and the League Cup (currently known as the Carabao Cup), which is for the 92 professional clubs in the four main professional divisions only.
List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries
"Clubs and locations as of 2018–19 season:""Clubs and locations as of 2018–19 season:"Clubs and locations as of 2018–19 season:""Clubs and locations as of 2018–19 season:"Founded in 1888, the Football League was the world's first national football league. The inaugural competition was won by Preston North End, who remained unbeaten throughout the entire season. It was the top level football league in England from its foundation until 1992, when the 22 clubs comprising the First Division resigned from the Football League to form the new FA Premier League. As of the 2017–18 season the Premier League comprises 20 clubs; each team plays every other team twice, with the bottom 3 clubs at the end of the season relegated to the EFL Championship. The most successful domestic club is Manchester United, who have won the league 20 times, while the most successful English club in Europe is Liverpool FC, who have won 5 European Cups, 3 UEFA Cups and 3 UEFA Super Cups, more than any other English team.
London
London's most popular sport is football and it has six clubs in the English Premier League: Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Fulham, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United. Other professional teams in London are Queens Park Rangers, Brentford, Millwall, Charlton Athletic, AFC Wimbledon and Barnet.
From 1924, the original Wembley Stadium was the home of the English national football team.
It hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup Final, with England defeating West Germany, and served as the venue for the FA Cup Final as well as rugby league's Challenge Cup final. The new Wembley Stadium serves exactly the same purposes and has a capacity of 90,000.
English Football League
Unlike in most other Leagues in Europe, no single English club managed to remain an ever-present in the division during the one hundred and four years of its existence as the top division in the country. Everton come closest, missing just four seasons through relegation, and remain one of only three clubs in England to have played over 100 top-flight seasons, along with Aston Villa and Arsenal.
History of football in England
The competitiveness of matches involving professional teams generated widespread interest, especially amongst the working class. Attendances increased significantly through the 1890s and the clubs had to build larger grounds to accommodate them. Typical ground construction was mostly terracing for standing spectators with limited seating provided in a grandstand built centrally alongside one of the pitch touchlines. Through media coverage, football became a main talking point among the population and had overtaken cricket as England's national sport by the early 20th century. The size of the Football League increased from the original twelve clubs in 1888 to 92 in 1950. The clubs were organised by team merit in four divisions with promotion and relegation at the end of each season. Internationally, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup but has otherwise been among the also-rans in global terms. English clubs have been a strong presence in European competition with several teams, especially Liverpool and Manchester United, winning the major continental trophies.
List of football clubs in England
Notes:
Premier League
The Premier League (often referred to as the English Premier League (EPL) outside England) is the top level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football League (EFL).
Football in the United Kingdom
Although technically not part of the UK, football in the crown dependencies is governed by The Football Association and represented by the England national football team. At the same time the crown dependencies also have their own non-FIFA affiliated teams:Overseas territories are not technically part of the UK either, and they have their own teams. Some of the overseas territories have full or associate membership in the corresponding regional federations:There are separate club football league systems for England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland though some clubs play outside their country's respective system for mainly logistical reasons. Wales did not get a national league until 1992 (though regional leagues existed prior to that), which explains why the top four Welsh clubs play in what is now regarded as the English system.
Sport in England
In the early 20th century England had some of the largest sports facilities in the world, but the level of comfort and amenities they offered would be considered totally unacceptable by modern standards. After a long period of decline relative to other developed countries English facilities have made a relative improvement since the 1980s, and this is ongoing.English football grounds are almost always football-only facilities in which the spectators are close to the action. Since the late 1980s there has been a dramatic spurt of reconstruction and replacement of league grounds, which is ongoing, and the Premiership's facilities are among the best of any sports league. As of early 2005 there are approximately 30 all-seater club grounds in England with a capacity of 25,000 or more, and three in Scotland. The largest is Manchester United's Old Trafford, which has a capacity of 76,000.
English football league system
The top tier of non-League football is the National League. It contains a national division (National League) of 24 clubs (Level 5), and is the lowest level with a single nationwide league. There are two divisions at Level 6, covering the north (National League North) and south (National League South), with 22 clubs each. Some of these clubs are full-time professional and the others are semi-professional. Below the National League, some of the stronger clubs are semi-professional, but continuing down the tiers, soon all the clubs are amateur. Lower-level leagues also tend to cater for progressively smaller geographic regions.