The History of English Football Clubs is a comprehensive chronicle of the 133 football clubs to have played in English leagues over the last 150 years. From current Premier League juggernauts Manchester City, Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea to League Two minnows like Bradford (2013 FA Cup finalists) and AFC Wimbledon. Each club has a proud history of its own, not to mention a legion of passionate, usually lifelong fans. Among these 133 are 41 clubs that lost their league status in years past, realising their supporters' worst fears. In his lively and engaging voice, Shoot magazine editor Colin Mitchell tells the fascinating stories of these English sporting institutions. Text is illuminated by rare historical images, while statistics detail important achievements, players and events. This intriguing, inclusive book is a must read for any football fan, revealing the legends and legacies behind every English club, whether brave, beloved, beleaguered or forgotten.

This reference work aims to provide sports enthusiasts, journalists, librarians, students and scholars with an authorative source of information on a comprehensive range of subjects covering the history and organization of football in Britain. Over 250 entries focus on key organisations or individuals, famous clubs, major competitions, events, venues and incidents, institutions and organisations as well as key issues such as gender, racism, commercialization, professionalism and drugs, alcohol and football.

Two veteran sports writers and editors take readers inside the history of the most-watched sports league on earth -- England's Premier League.

This ambitious and fascinating history considers why, in the space of sixty years between 1850 and 1910, football grew from a marginal and unorganised activity to become the dominant winter entertainment for millions of people around the world. The book explores how the world’s football codes - soccer, rugby league, rugby union, American, Australian, Canadian and Gaelic - developed as part of the commercialised leisure industry in the nineteenth century. Football, however and wherever it was played, was a product of the second industrial revolution, the rise of the mass media, and the spirit of the age of the masses. Important reading for students of sports studies, history, sociology, development and management, this book is also a valuable resource for scholars and academics involved in the study of football in all its forms, as well as an engrossing read for anyone interested in the early history of football.

The story of British football's journey from public school diversion to mass media entertainment is a remarkable one. The Association Game traces British football from the establishment of the earliest clubs in the nineteenth century to its place as one of the prominent and commercialised leisure industries at the beginning of the twenty first century. It covers supporters and fandom, status and culture, big business, the press and electronic media and development in playing styles, tactics and rules. This is the only up to date book on the history of British football, covering the twentieth century shift from amateur to professional and whole of the British Isles, not just England.

Part 1 of this edition consists of the creation of the English football league in 1888. It includes every football league result and the final league tables to the first England International matches in the British Home International Championship results. It also provides the tables and their statistics with the first games against overseas opposition, containing all the players and their teams. Read about the oldest cup competition in the world, the Football Association Challenge Cup (FA Cup), from its humble beginning in 1872 and every result from the first round until the final. The book also incorporates the First World War mini-tournaments to the first FA Cup Final and England Internationals played at the World famous British Empire Stadium, simply known as Wembley Stadium. Part 1 finishes with the 1929-1930 football league season. Amaze your friends with the facts! For history buffs and true sportsmen, The History of the English Football League - Part 1: 1888-1930 is a must read.