History of English football
The modern global game of Football was first codified in 1863 in London. The impetus for this was to unify English public school and university football games. There is evidence for refereed, team football games being played in English schools since at least 1581. An account of an exclusively kicking football game from Nottinghamshire in the fifteenth century bears similarity to association football. England can boast the earliest ever documented use of the English word "football" (1409) and the earliest reference to the sport in French (1314). The modern passing game is believed to have been innovated in London [6][7] and England is home to the oldest football clubs in the world (dating from at least 1857), the world's oldest competition (the FA cup founded in 1871) and the first ever association football league (1888). For these reasons England is considered the home of the game of football.
Football was played in England as far back as medieval times, with the first account of a football-like game coming in 1280, and references to "foot balls" dating as far back as 1314. By the 16th centuries references to organised teams and goals had appeared. The 19th century saw the origins of codification of the game, by members of the nation's public schools and universities//. The Cambridge Rules were created in 1848[citation needed], the Sheffield rules in 1857 and the Football Association was founded in 1863. That led to the foundation of the FA Cup in 1871, and the England team played the world's first international match, against Scotland, the following year.
The late nineteenth century was dominated by the growing split between the amateur and professional teams, which was roughly aligned along a North-South divide; northern clubs were keen to adopt professionalism as workers could not afford to play on an amateur basis, while Southern clubs by the large part stuck by traditional "Corinthian" values of amateurism. Eventually, in 1885 the FA legalised professionalism, which led in turn to the foundation of the Football League by twelve clubs in 1888. Preston North End were inaugural winners in 1888-89, and also were the first team to complete the Double. Aston Villa repeated the feat in 1896-97.
The League expanded over the next 25 years as football boomed in England, from one division of twelve teams in 1888, to two divisions of 40 by 1914; during this time sides from the North and Midlands dominated, with Aston Villa, Sunderland, The Wednesday and Newcastle United all winning three or more league titles in the period leading up to World War I. During hostilities, competitive football was suspended but games were still played at a regional and less official level.
The inter-war years were dominated by Huddersfield Town, Everton and Arsenal, who won 11 of the 18 league titles contested between them, with Huddersfield and Arsenal each grabbing a hat-trick, and Arsenal taking five in total, as well as two FA Cups. The national stadium at Wembley was opened in 1923, with the "White Horse Final" being the first FA Cup final to be played there. By the turn of the thirties, the League expanded to include two whole new divisions and 88 clubs, and the national side started to play sides from outside the British Isles. However, the FA's resignation from FIFA in 1928 meant that England did not contest any of the first three World Cups.
The post-war years were dominated first by Manchester United (three titles and an FA Cup) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (two titles and two FA Cups), although the former's progress was halted by the 1958 Munich air disaster. However, during this time English football was being outstripped abroad; England lost 1-0 to the United States at the 1950 World Cup, and then 6-3 to Hungary at Wembley in 1953. English clubs had little success in the European club competitions set up; The Football Association and the Football League persuaded the 1955 English champions Chelsea from participating in the first European Cup competition (1955/56). Chelsea's successors as English champions, Manchester United ignored such advice and reached the semi-final of the 1957 European Cup, where they lost to the eventual winners Real Madrid. The following season, United defeated Red Star Belgrade in the quarter final only to be decimated in the Munich Air Disaster when returning from Belgrade. Their patched-up team proved no match for A.C. Milan in the semi-finals. Subsequent European Cup campaigns by Wolverhampton Wanderers in 1959 and 1960 ended in the first round and the quarter finals respectively. A London XI and Birmingham City did reach the finals of the first two Inter-Cities Fairs Cup tournaments.
Modernisation followed in the 1960s, with revolutions in the game such as the George Eastham case allowing players greater freedom of movement, and the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961. Tottenham Hotspur became the first club to win The Double in the 20th century in 1960-61, and the first English club to win a European trophy, the UEFA Cup Winners' Cup in 1962-63. The most marked success of the era, however, was Alf Ramsey's England side, which won the 1966 FIFA World Cup on home soil after controversially beating West Germany 4-2 after extra time, the first and only time the national side has won the trophy.
Two years later Manchester United became the first English club to win the European Cup, while Leeds United and Arsenal both enjoyed success in the late sixties and early seventies. However, it was Liverpool who came to dominate the game from the early seventies onwards, for nearly two decades; they won 11 titles and four European Cups between 1972 and 1990. Other successful sides in the 1970s and 1980s included their rivals Nottingham Forest, who won a title and two European Cups in the late seventies, and Everton, with two titles in the mid eighties, and Aston Villa with a European Cup in 1982. However while club sides thrived in European competition, the national team struggled, failing to qualify for both the 1974 and 1978 World Cups,
By this time serious problems had surfaced. The rise of hooliganism marred the game throughout the seventies and eighties, with attendances dipping. The nadir came in 1985, when Liverpool fans' hooliganism, combined with poor policing and infrastructure, led to the deaths of 39 Juventus fans before the European Cup final, in the Heysel Stadium disaster; English clubs were banned from Europe for five years as a result. England's own ancient and poorly-built stadiums were responsible, along with other factors, for two disasters, one at Bradford in 1985 and the other at Hillsborough in 1989, killing 56 and 96 people respectively.
The post-Hillsborough Taylor Report forced the conversion of stadiums to all-seater; at the same time, the money from television coverage was increasing rapidly. These, combined with England's relative success at the 1990 World Cup, reaching the semi-finals only to lose on penalties to West Germany, and a concerted effort to drive out hooliganism reinvigorated the national game. In the spring of 1992, the top 22 clubs resigned en masse from The Football League, forming a new top-level competition overseen by The FA and named The FA Premier League (from 2007, simply the Premier League). The Premier League came to be dominated by Manchester United in its first decade, who won eight titles and four FA Cups (including two Doubles) and a Champions League title between 1993 and 2003.
Although this boom brought wealth to the game, clubs' financial success also became more polarised, particularly after the collapse of ITV Digital in 2002, which led to lower-division clubs being put into administration and one or two facing near-bankruptcy. This polarisation has occurred even within the Premier League, with it becoming dominated by Manchester United, Arsenal (winning two doubles in 1998 & 2002, and a league title unbeaten in 2004), and Chelsea (who were bought by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich in 2003 and won back-to-back titles in 2005 and 2006).
Despite the success of the domestic game, and a resurgence in fortunes for English clubs in Europe (Liverpool won the Champions League again in 2005), the national team's fortunes have been decidedly mixed, with them missing the '94 World Cup enitrely. They had their best post-1990 performance coming in Euro 96, where they were knocked out in the semi-finals on penalties by Germany; penalty shoot-out defeats went on to haunt England at the 1998 World Cup, Euro 2004 and the 2006 World Cup as well. Most recently England failed to reach the finals of the European Football Championships to be held in 2008 following a laclustre display throughout the qualifying campaign, with manager Steve McClaren being sacked from his position of head coach as a result.