The Football League is a name that resonates with football fans across the world. The league has been the bedrock of English football for over a century and has played a pivotal role in the sport’s growth and development. But how did it all begin?
We have to trace our steps back 135 years ago to this day (23 March)! In 1888, a group of twelve clubs came together to form the Football League, the world’s oldest professional association football league. This was a significant moment in the history of English football, providing the foundation for the overwhelming success of today’s Premier League.
Why was the Football League created?
The establishment of the Football League in 1888 was driven by a number of reasons and motivations.
Structured Organisation
Prior to the league’s formation, football was played on an ad-hoc basis, with teams organizing matches amongst themselves without a clear hierarchy or structure.
While the formation of the Football Association in 1863 had formalised the rules of the sport, the introduction of a Football League was deemed the next logical step in structuring a professional sporting environment.
Financial Profits
Football’s popularity as a pastime boomed in the late 19th century as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Growing, urban populations were able to find identities in more localised communities across football teams.
At the risk of sounding like a mini Marx, capitalism drove clubs towards profiting on the sport’s popularity by the turn of the century. The Football League provided a means for teams to generate revenue through ticket sales, advertising, and other forms of sponsorship.
Barometer of Quality
Tactics and disparity in quality between teams were often muted during the late 19th Century. Even so, players and fans alike craved a championship that highlighted the nation’s best team – without the unpredictability that is part and parcel of cup competitions.
The Football League aimed to create a more consistent and reliable means of determining the best team in the country, which would provide a more accurate reflection of the quality of football being played.
Who created the Football League?
The idea for the Football League was first proposed by William McGregor, a committee member of Aston Villa, in 1888. Aside from sporting a majestic beard, the Scotsman was keen to build on the growing belief that English football required a structured and professional organization.
The first meeting to discuss the formation of the league was held at Anderton’s Hotel in London on 23 March 1888, on the eve of the FA Cup Final. Representatives from 12 clubs were present, including Wolverhampton Wanderers, West Bromwich Albion, Stoke City, Notts County, Derby County, Aston Villa, Preston North End, Everton, Burnley, Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, and Accrington.
(West Brom went on to beat the favourites, Preston, in the FA Cup final 2-1 the following day. Confidence was so high amongst The Invincibles before the game that they asked to be pre-photographed with the trophy. Despite claims of referee bias towards Preston’s heavily Scottish-based team, the result stands as one of the first major FA Cup final upsets).
After an initial agreement over the necessity of a league formation, a further meeting on 17 April at the Royal Hotel in Manchester settled upon the name “The Football League”. “Association Football Union” was flirted with by McGregor, but the other attendees felt it too closely resembled rugby’s “Rugby Football Union”.
The original 12 clubs formed the league and the initially simplistic rules decided teams’ positions by calculation “from wins, draws, and losses”. It was not until late November that a points system was decided upon, with teams being awarded two points for a win and one point for a draw.
Bafflingly, the goal average (used to separate teams level on points) was calculated by goals scored divided by those conceded. For teams who held clean sheets in their opening games, their goal average would have been infinite.
Who won the first Football League?
Kicking off the new era in English Football on 8 September 1888, Everton amusingly played host at Anfield for the travelling Accrington. Jock McGregor and George Dobson secured a 2-1 victory for the Toffees in front of 10,000 spectators. The pick of the matches from the opening weekend saw a 9-goal bonanza between West Brom (6) and Bolton (3).
After reaching the league’s summit in the second matchday, Preston North End would remain untouched at the top to be crowned the inaugural winners in a stunning ‘invincibles season’. Preston would win the league with four games left to play – in a season that saw them pick up 18 wins over the 22 matches played, racking up 74 goals and conceding just 15.
Londoner, John Goodall, finished the campaign as the league’s top goalscorer after bagging 21 goals. Although spending only four years at Preston over his career, Goodall etched his name into Deepdale history with magnetic performances that earnt him 56 goals over 66 appearances.
Relegation did not exist in the Football League until the formation of the Second Division in 1892. Stoke City’s goal average saw them finish dead last in twelfth place, but the Potters survived for a second season of the Football League due to the technicality.
The legacy of the Football League
It would be naive to avoid the obvious commercial benefits that a professionally structured league enabled.
In May 2021, the Premier League extended their £5.1 billion television deal until the end of the 2024-25 season. For context, that’s on par with the net worth of nations like Haiti (11.45 million pop.) and Eritrea (3.62 million pop.).
Not only did the Football League kickstart club transitions from amateur to professional, but it also scheduled regular matches as opposed to the sporadic arrangements prior. As a result, clubs began to move funding from fundraisers towards more reliable means of ticket sales and sponsorships.
Although hard evidence of nineteenth-century ticket prices is rare, Anton Rippon notes that “the price of admission to League matches were usually sixpence in the early years of the competition” in his book, The Birth of the Football League.
While the cost of tickets will have varied depending on the location and popularity of the match, the consensus among football scholars is that early Football League matches were economically accessible for the working-class masses.
Another addition to the long-term survival of football was the development of tactics. Granted, the tinkering and adoption of new formations was a laborious, teeth-pulling process for most Football League managers. Yet to survive in a points-based league system, which emphasised winning games rather than avoiding defeat, teams were forced to adapt to survive.
Could William McGregor, sitting amongst peers in the candle-lit halls of a London hotel, have ever envisioned the explosion of professional football across the world?
It’s hard to believe.
Yet the motivations behind the establishment of the football league (commercialisation, structured competition and barometer of quality) remain the same drivers for FIFA President Gianni Infantino, today. Albeit, with commercialisation taking centre stage for many of his proposed schemes.
Despite storylines of mega-million contracts, European Super Leagues and the celebrity status of players, you need only scratch the surface to identify the legacy of the Football League today.