A letter from an Aston Villa director created the world's oldest football league
In March 1888 clubs still arranged their own fixtures, often chaotically. William McGregor, a Scot on Aston Villa's board, wrote to five other clubs proposing a league that would guarantee regular matches. Within months twelve teams from the Midlands and the north kicked off the first season of the Football League.
McGregor's idea may have been inspired by English press reports in 1887 about a planned American college football league. His preferred name, Association Football Union, sounded too much like the Rugby Football Union, so Preston's Major William Sudell proposed The Football League instead, agreed at the Royal Hotel in Manchester in April. Play began on 8 September. Preston won that first title without losing a match and added the FA Cup for the first league and cup double.
Early rules were improvised. The system of two points for a win was only settled after the season started, and bottom clubs had to apply for re-election each year. A Second Division arrived in 1892 when the rival Football Alliance was absorbed, bringing in Newton Heath, the future Manchester United. Test matches between the divisions fell into disrepute in 1898 after Stoke and Burnley played out a convenient 0–0 draw that kept both up, and automatic promotion and relegation replaced them.
By 1950 the league had grown to 92 clubs. In 1992 its leading members broke away to form what became the Premier League, chasing more revenue, though promotion between the two continues. Rebranded as the English Football League from 2016–17, it now runs three divisions of 24 clubs each: the Championship, League One and League Two. Four members, among them Wrexham and Cardiff City, are Welsh.
Every club plays 46 matches, and playoffs among four teams decide one promotion place per division, so a side finishing sixth, or seventh in League Two, can go up ahead of those above it. Since 2004–05 a club entering administration before 31 March loses twelve points on the spot. The league also runs the EFL Cup and the EFL Trophy.
Source: English Football League
