Wherever in the world you are the Football League is known and respected. The shape of English and indeed world football as we know it today was set over a century ago.
The decision of eleven clubs to send
representatives to the Freemasons Tavern in central London on 26 October 1863
had a common aim - to find a form of rules by which the fast-emerging game of
football could be played. It was decided that 'a football association should be
formed for the purpose of settling a code of rules for the regulation of the
game,' and an annual general meeting was called for the last week in September -
thus setting the beginning of the traditional football season.
Not all those present gave their backing to the movement. Charterhouse, one of the ‘great schools’, agreed with the broad aims of the association but Captain BF Hartshorne felt he had to wait to gauge the reaction of others before giving up their own brand of the game. Harrow, too, were initially unwilling to change their rules - but when the Football Association rules were finally agreed upon in early December, they were based on that school’s understanding of how the game was played.
By that time, Rugby had resigned from the new association, not because they liked to handle the ball but because the practice of 'hacking' or physically kicking opponents was outlawed. The Rugby Football Union was formed in 1871 by those for whom handling and hacking held no fears. Rules agreed by the FA included the maximum length and breadth of the pitch, kicking off, goals, throw-ins and offside.
Corners were free-kicks taken 15 yards from the goal line opposite where the ball went out of play. Passing the ball by hand was still permitted if caught 'fairly or on the first bounce.' Yet the rules were strangely non-specific in such matters as number of players, the penalty for foul play or even the shape of the ball, such matters to be decided by agreement between the captains.
Incomplete as these basic rules were, they were a start - and competition was soon to follow. The first New Year fixture between Sheffield and Nottingham was played on 2 January 1865: the latter (now Notts County) are thus the oldest current English League club, having been founded two years earlier. Sheffield ventured to London in the following year, but having won the first Nottingham fixture, found themselves losing to the capital outfit.
Nottingham Forest were formed in 1865, and the first 'derby' game against local rivals County followed. Chesterfield (1866) and Stoke (1867) were next to join, and the game spread, no longer the exclusive preserve of the public schools but not yet a working-class pastime.
Sheffield's game in London in 1866 had enabled the FA to observe their rules at close quarters, and handling and catching the ball was soon abolished as a result. The FA Cup was clearly the start of something big. Within a matter of a few years, all clubs vied to take part - and by doing so accepted the FA rules of football, which remain the basis by which the game is played throughout the world today.
If the FA kicked off organised football in England, then the foundation of the Football League in 1888 gave it a huge kick forward. Ironically, its founder was a Scotsman - William McGregor, a man who never played a game of first-class football in his life. He organised the two meetings held in London and Manchester which brought together the 12 clubs soon to become the League's founder members: Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.
With the FA Cup the only current competition, clubs' revenue depended on a good run: an early exit could be disastrous, while friendly games postponed due to Cup replays were often not replayed. The League was formed to create order from chaos, give a structure to the game in England and guarantee fixtures and revenue for the country's top dozen teams. These were split equally between the north and the midlands, the south remaining predominantly amateur.
Preston North End achieved the League and Cup Double in the first season, finishing the season undefeated and without having conceded a Cup goal. The team was mainly made up of Scots, England centre forward John Goodall the star 'foreigner'.
Preston also won the League the following year, despite four defeats, with runners-up Everton reversing positions in the 1890-91 season. The 12 founder members become 14 in 1891-92 with the addition of Stoke and Darwen.
Football League points were originally earned only for wins, but this was amended after ten weeks of the first season to award one point for the draw. That's how it stayed until 1981-82 when a large number of goalless draws led the League to up the points for a win to three.
Added to the League in 1890 when Stoke dropped out, Sunderland dominated the 1890s with three League titles in four seasons, their success setting up the north-east as a hotbed of football. Known as the Team of All the Talents, they topped 100 goals for the first time in League history in 1892-93, their first Championship season, due to the expansion of the division to 16 clubs.
Aston Villa were the first club to challenge northern supremacy, taking the title in 1893-94 and adding four more before the end of the century. A monopoly was avoided by Sheffield United, winners in 1897-98, who'd joined the League in 1893, a year after city rivals Wednesday.
The Football League acquired a 12-strong Second Division in 1892-93 by taking over the rival Football Alliance set up in 1889. The new division admitted its first club from the south in 1893 when Woolwich Arsenal were elected.
Promotion and relegation was settled by a series of three test matches, the top three teams from the Second Division playing the bottom three from the First. The system was simplified after a goalless draw in 1898 between Stoke and Burnley which kept both clubs in the top flight. An automatic two up/two down system of promotion and relegation was instituted that would remain until 1973-74, the third place being made the subject of a play-off in 1986-87.
The first years of the 20th Century up to World War I saw attendances booming - and Newcastle were a dominant force. Only a Cup Final defeat against Villa dashed their hopes of the Double, while 1907 and 1909 brought further Championship wins. In 1910 they finally won the Cup and, with five Final appearances, could consider themselves unlucky not to have done the Double. Their playmaker was Scots half-back Peter McWilliam, while a defence marshalled by Alec Gardner and Andy Aitken conceded just 33 - less than a goal a game - in their 1904-05 League win. Apart from a double title win by Sheffield Wednesday in 1902-03 and 1903-04, the Championship changed hands with regularity. Lancashire staked a claim in the shape of Blackburn, whose prewar team won two Championships in 1912 and 1914 led by skipper Bob Crompton.
The First Division was extended by two clubs after the First World War, southern sides Arsenal and Chelsea taking the new places. But the north continued to dominate in the shape of Huddersfield whose hat-trick of titles in 1923-26 was masterminded by the great Herbert Chapman. Ironically, Arsenal would break the stranglehold after his move south.
Everton's 102 goals brought them the title in 1927-28 thanks to the great Bill 'Dixie' Dean, who beat George Camsell's 59-goal record (established just the previous year when Middlesbrough achieved promotion to the First Division) by a single strike.
The lower echelons of the League were expanded by a Third Division of 22 clubs, established in 1920-21 But after just one campaign the decision was made to regionalise the lower orders, with two Third Divisions serving the north (20 clubs) and south (22). By 1923-24 all four divisions numbered 22 clubs apiece, while 1950-51 would see the lower divisions expand yet again by adding an extra two clubs each.
The regional divisions fed one club apiece to the Second Division, teams in the Midlands, such as Mansfield Town and Walsall being obliged to switch depending on the location of promotion and relegation candidates. In 1957-58 regionalisation was abandoned and the bottom halves of both tables amalgamated as the new Fourth Division.
Back in the top flight, Arsenal were carrying all before them thanks to manager Herbert Chapman, ironically a former player with north London rivals Spurs. Having set Huddersfield on the way to their third consecutive title, he succeeded Leslie Knighton at Highbury just as the offside law changed in the attackers' favour. Chapman withdrew the centre-half from midfield to plug the gap in front of the goalkeeper, changing the course of football tactics as he did so.
Arsenal's success was founded on teamwork, talented individuals such as Buchan, James, Bastin and centre-half Herbie Roberts the foundations. But reputation was no guarantee of a place: the Cup-winning side of 1930 contained only four players who had lost 1-0 to Cardiff just three years before. The trophy came to the capital for the first time ever in 1931, and again in 1933 - a year ironically remembered for their FA Cup Third Round giant-killing by Walsall. Chapman's death in 1934 didn't halt Arsenal's progress: they won the League twice more in 1933-34 and 1934-35 under George Allison, a Cup win in 1936 and a fifth Championship in 1937-38 confirming them as the team of the 1930s.
The war years saw football continue in Britain on a regional basis, but there was no substitute for League fare. As the hostilities ended and the English League programme restarted, the British public returned in their thousands. The 1948-49 season saw crowds at record levels, an aggregate figure of 41,271,424 that has never been surpassed - and with new all-seater stadia, never will.
Liverpool won the first postwar First Division title, taking over from Merseyside neighbours Everton, Champions of 1938-39 who'd reigned through the war years. Arsenal, winners in 1948, gave way to Portsmouth whose Championships in 1949 and 1950 remain their only honours to date. The 1950s saw English football wake up to advances elsewhere in the world. While Wolves, three times League Champions in 1954, 1958 and 1959, were undoubtedly a great team, their 3-2 defeat of Hungary's Honved in December 1954 could not justify newspaper headlines of 'World Champions' after the Hungarian national team had humbled England at Wembley in November1953 and again six months later.
Nevertheless Wolves, fashioned by player turned manager Stan Cullis and captained by England's Billy Wright, were a class side. Wing-halves Eddie Clamp and Ron Flowers were the engine room, with keeper Bert Williams an ever-reliable last line of defence. Wolves' long-ball game was aimed at the head of striker Roy Swinbourne. But Manchester United, who finished top of the table in 1956 and 1957, were the team of the moment. Known as the Busby Babes, their talent was to flower briefly and brightly before the Munich air crash in February 1958. United's Duncan Edwards became the youngest postwar player to wear a full England shirt when he was capped at the age of 18 years and 6 months against Scotland in April 1955.
The traditional Lancashire powerbase would be weakened by the advent of freedom of contract and the lifting of the maximum wage, two forces that would combine to make it impossible for such clubs to hold onto their stars. Blackpool, Burnley and Preston all enjoyed their last tastes of First Division power in this period: Blackpool finished runners-up to Manchester United in 1956, Preston to Wolves two years later while Burnley's Championship in 1959-60 was only their second in 72 years!
The maximum wage was abolished in 1961 after George Eastham challenged Newcastle United's right to refuse him a transfer in a court of law. The 'retain and transfer' system had previously existed unchallenged, and now a player had the right to decide his own destiny (thanks to Jimmy Hill, chairman of the Professional Footballers' Association) it was time for market forces to rule.
At the bottom end of the scale, the abolition of regional football in 1958 had increased the cost of running a team, and it was surprising that only one club, Accrington Stanley in 1961-62, went out of business. Elsewhere, Fulham hung onto their England midfielder Johnny Haynes by making him the first £100 a week footballer, while Denis Law and Jimmy Greaves returned from Italian exile to join Manchester United and Spurs -two clubs whose buying power would help them become established as 1960s giants.
Spurs' Double triumph of 1960-61 came the season before Greaves' arrival and, satisfyingly settling old scores, equalled neighbours' Arsenal's record points total set in 1930-31. It was masterminded by two managers - Bill Nicholson, the official Tottenham chief and midfield man Danny Blanchflower, who proved an inspirational captain. 'In a poor side, Danny was a luxury,' said Nicholson, 'but in a good side his creativity was priceless.'
Other Stories
The History of Arsenal Football Club
The History of Manchester United Football club
The History of Chelsea Football club