England's League Cup was born to fill floodlit midweek evenings
By the late 1950s most big English grounds had floodlights, and the Football League spotted a chance to sell football on winter weeknights. In 1960–61 it launched the League Cup as a midweek tournament under the lights. The Times dismissed it as useless, predicting it would get players, clubs and fans nowhere.
The notion first came from Stanley Rous, who pictured a consolation prize for clubs already out of the FA Cup, but League secretary Alan Hardaker made it happen. He pitched it as a way to recoup income from a planned reorganisation that never quite arrived, and as a way for the League to assert itself at a time of tense relations with the Football Association over sharing money. Attendances were falling too: the league had lost a million spectators in a single season. League president Joe Richards paid for the trophy out of his own pocket and had his name engraved on it.
Today the competition is open to all 92 clubs in the top four divisions. It runs over seven rounds of one-off ties, except for two-legged semi-finals, and the lower rounds are split into northern and southern sections. The final, on a Sunday at Wembley, is the only neutral-venue match, and it finishes in late February, months before the FA Cup and the league. Since 2020–21 winners have earned a place in the UEFA Conference League.
Its prestige has wobbled. Winners collect just £100,000 against £2 million for the FA Cup, many top clubs field youngsters in early rounds, and Carling cited the cup's low standing among fans and big clubs when it stopped sponsoring in 2011. In 2010, though, Alex Ferguson insisted it was worth winning, after Arsène Wenger said victory would not end his trophy drought.
The heavyweights have since reclaimed it: Manchester City, Manchester United, Liverpool and Chelsea shared 20 titles between 2001 and 2026. Liverpool hold the record with 10, and Swansea City, in 2012–13, remain the only Welsh winners.
Source: EFL Cup
