Portal:English football

The English Football Portal

The England national football team playing at Wembley Stadium in 2008

Football is the most popular sport in England. Widely regarded as the birthplace of modern football, the first official rules of the game were established in England in 1863. The country is home to the world's first football league, the oldest national governing body, and the oldest national knockout competition. With over 40,000 football clubs, England has more teams involved in the sport than any other country. The world's first football club, Sheffield F.C., and the oldest professional club, Notts County, were both founded in England.

The influence of the British Empire helped spread football across the globe, shaping the development of the modern Laws of the Game. England's domestic football scene remains one of the strongest in the world, with the Premier League ranking among the richest and most popular leagues globally. As of 2024, five of the ten richest football clubs were English. Football remains deeply ingrained in English culture, with 31% of the population expressing an interest in the sport. (Full article...)

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West Bromwich Albion Football Club are an English professional football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands. They have competed in England's top-flight for a total of over 70 seasons overall, but as of this current season, the team plays in the Football League Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was formed in 1878 by workers from Salter's Spring Works in West Bromwich, and have played their home games at The Hawthorns since 1900.

Albion were one of the founding members of The Football League in 1888 but have won the league title only once, in 1919–20. They have had more success in the FA Cup, with five wins. The first came in 1888, the year the league was founded, and the most recent in 1968, their last major trophy. They also won the Football League Cup at the first attempt in 1966. Since the early 1980s the club has been less successful and they spent their longest ever period out of the top division from 1986 to 2002. During their exile from the top tier, in 1991, the Baggies fell to the third tier for the first time. However, Albion won promotion over their Black Country Neighbours, Wolves, in 2002, despite being 10 points ahead of them. For most of the 2000s, Albion yo-yoed between the Premiership and the second tier, before they were a mainstay in the top flight for the majority of the following decade. After relegation in 2018, Albion returned to the Premiership two years later, but went down the following year.

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Did you know...

...that Stoke City F.C. (1870s squad pictured) is the second-oldest English football league club, as it was founded in 1863?

...that the former English football player Eric Brook was the all-time record goalscorer for Manchester City F.C. with 178 goals until his tally was surpassed by Sergio Agüero in 2017?

...that although England centre forward Geoff Hurst had scored a hat-trick and was therefore entitled to keep the match ball, it was German striker Helmut Haller who took it home after the 1966 World Cup final?

...that John Percival, when headmaster of Rugby School, gained the nickname "Percival of the knees" because he was concerned about "impurity" and insisted that boys secure their football shorts below the knee with elastic?

...that Bradford City Football Club blamed their FA Cup exit in the 1919–20 season on a pre-game trip to Fry's chocolate works?

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The FA National League System Cup is a football competition run by The Football Association. It was created in the 2003-04 season to provide an English representative in the UEFA Regions' Cup.

In previous Regions' Cups, the FA had nominated a team to take part; in the 2002-03 season it was a Kent County League XI. UEFA decreed that in the future all Regions' Cup entrants must have won a national competition, and so the NLS Cup was formed.

The cup is contested by representative sides from leagues at level 7 of the National League System with a few other leagues permitted by the FA. That is roughly at the county level or eleventh overall tier of the English football league system. The first final was held on May 8, 2004, and was won by the Mid Cheshire League, who beat the Cambridgeshire County League 2-0.

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Women's FA Cup 2006, Birmingham City v Arsenal

Credit: Flickr user Jaskirt Dhaliwal

Birmingham City's Kate Ward attempts to get past Arsenal defender Alex Scott for a shot on goal in a match from the 2006 FA Women's Premier League Cup. Arsenal are the most successful women's football team in England and completed the quadruple in the 2006-07 season by winning the FA Women's Premier League, FA Women's Cup, League Cup and the UEFA Women's Cup.