Extract from Chapter 5: ‘Workers’ playtime’ | The Football League is born
With professionalism out in the open, soccer continued to grow and flourish: not only in Lancashire, but also in the Midlands, where clubs such as Aston Villa, Notts County, West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers soon turned professional. Clubs became more businesslike and commercially minded. Players could spend more time improving their fitness and skills, and the quality of play improved rapidly.
But, with the players being paid weekly, the clubs needed a regular diet of attractive fixtures to keep the public, and the money, rolling in. FA Cup ties only came along sporadically, and the competitive part of a club’s season could be over after one match. The rest of the season consisted of friendlies, which were mostly of little interest and were often cancelled. Into the breach stepped William McGregor, a man with a big idea.
McGregor was a draper from Perthshire who had moved to Birmingham in 1870, becoming a successful businessman there. He got involved in local football, and became a committee member and financial backer at Aston Villa. After a home Cup tie against Preston in January 1888 drew a crowd of 26,000, McGregor began thinking up a scheme that could make clubs less reliant on the Cup for their income.
Like professional sport, the idea of a league was hardly new. In the United States, baseball’s professional National Association had been launched 17 years earlier. As we shall see later, a league table, of sorts, had first been published for what we now know as Australian Rules football in 1877. England’s first-class county cricket teams had been meeting on a regular basis for some time, and journalists had started compiling an unofficial table in 1887. McGregor envisioned a league structure for English football, which he hoped would become equal in stature to the FA Cup. In March 1888, he sent a circular to the chairmen of Blackburn Rovers, Bolton, Preston and West Bromwich:
‘Every year it is becoming more and more difficult for football clubs of any standing to meet their friendly engagements and even arrange friendly matches. The consequence is that at the last moment, through cup-tie interference, clubs are compelled to take on teams who will not attract the public. I beg to tender the following suggestion as a means of getting over the difficulty: that ten or twelve of the most prominent clubs in England combine to arrange home-and-away fixtures each season, the said fixtures to be arranged at a friendly conference about the same time as the International Conference.’
The chairmen were invited to suggest other suitable clubs, and a meeting was arranged for 22 March at Anderson’s Hotel in Fleet Street, London. Some clubs had reservations about the idea: they were wary about the costs of travelling regularly around the country, and concerned that the league might undermine the FA’s authority. However, representatives of seven clubs from Lancashire and the Midlands attended the meeting and approved the plan in principle.
McGregor suggested naming the new scheme the ‘Association Football Union’, though this could have led people to confuse it with both the FA and the Rugby Football Union. He was uneasy about the alternative suggestion of ‘Football League’, apparently because it was reminiscent of the rebellious Irish Land League; but he backed down, and the Football League was born.
But, with the players being paid weekly, the clubs needed a regular diet of attractive fixtures to keep the public, and the money, rolling in. FA Cup ties only came along sporadically, and the competitive part of a club’s season could be over after one match. The rest of the season consisted of friendlies, which were mostly of little interest and were often cancelled. Into the breach stepped William McGregor, a man with a big idea.
McGregor was a draper from Perthshire who had moved to Birmingham in 1870, becoming a successful businessman there. He got involved in local football, and became a committee member and financial backer at Aston Villa. After a home Cup tie against Preston in January 1888 drew a crowd of 26,000, McGregor began thinking up a scheme that could make clubs less reliant on the Cup for their income.
Like professional sport, the idea of a league was hardly new. In the United States, baseball’s professional National Association had been launched 17 years earlier. As we shall see later, a league table, of sorts, had first been published for what we now know as Australian Rules football in 1877. England’s first-class county cricket teams had been meeting on a regular basis for some time, and journalists had started compiling an unofficial table in 1887. McGregor envisioned a league structure for English football, which he hoped would become equal in stature to the FA Cup. In March 1888, he sent a circular to the chairmen of Blackburn Rovers, Bolton, Preston and West Bromwich:
‘Every year it is becoming more and more difficult for football clubs of any standing to meet their friendly engagements and even arrange friendly matches. The consequence is that at the last moment, through cup-tie interference, clubs are compelled to take on teams who will not attract the public. I beg to tender the following suggestion as a means of getting over the difficulty: that ten or twelve of the most prominent clubs in England combine to arrange home-and-away fixtures each season, the said fixtures to be arranged at a friendly conference about the same time as the International Conference.’
The chairmen were invited to suggest other suitable clubs, and a meeting was arranged for 22 March at Anderson’s Hotel in Fleet Street, London. Some clubs had reservations about the idea: they were wary about the costs of travelling regularly around the country, and concerned that the league might undermine the FA’s authority. However, representatives of seven clubs from Lancashire and the Midlands attended the meeting and approved the plan in principle.
McGregor suggested naming the new scheme the ‘Association Football Union’, though this could have led people to confuse it with both the FA and the Rugby Football Union. He was uneasy about the alternative suggestion of ‘Football League’, apparently because it was reminiscent of the rebellious Irish Land League; but he backed down, and the Football League was born.