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The English Football Portal

The England national football team playing at Wembley.

Football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association football clubs, England has more clubs involved in the code than any other country. England hosts the world's first club, Sheffield F.C.; the world's oldest professional association football club, Notts County; the oldest national governing body, the Football Association; the joint-oldest national team; the oldest national knockout competition, the FA Cup; and the oldest national league, the English Football League. Today England's top domestic league, the Premier League, is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, with five of the ten richest football clubs in the world as of 2022.

The England national football team is one of only eight teams to win the FIFA World Cup, having done so once, in 1966. A total of six English club teams have won the UEFA Champions League, formerly known as the European Cup. (Full article...)

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Nicky Southall in despair after relegation in 2005

Gillingham F.C. is an English football club based in Gillingham, Kent. The history of Gillingham F.C. covers the years from the club's formation to the present day. The club was formed in 1893, and played in the Southern League until 1920, when that league's top division was absorbed into the Football League as its new Division Three. The club was voted out of the league in favour of Ipswich Town at the end of the 1937–38 season, but returned 12 years later, when that league was expanded from 88 to 92 clubs.

Twice in the late 1980s Gillingham came close to winning promotion to the second tier of English football, but a decline then set in and in 1993 the club narrowly avoided relegation to the Football Conference. In 2000, the "Gills" reached the second tier of the English league for the first time in the club's history and went on to spend five seasons at this level, achieving a club record highest league finish of eleventh place in 2002–03. The only honour the club has won at a professional level was the Football League Fourth Division championship in 1963–64.

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Did you know...

...that Mick Mills (pictured) was made captain of the England national football team which started the 1982 World Cup because Kevin Keegan was unable to play through injury?

...that Stan Mortensen scored a hat-trick in the 1953 FA Cup Final at Wembley, becoming the first player ever to do so?

...that although England centre forward Geoff Hurst had scored a hat-trick and was therefore entitled to keep the match ball, it was German striker Helmut Haller who took it home after the 1966 World Cup final?

...that John Percival, when headmaster of Rugby School, gained the nickname "Percival of the knees" because he was concerned about "impurity" and insisted that boys secure their football shorts below the knee with elastic?

...that the Premier League's proposal to play some matches outside England has been condemned by the Football Supporters' Federation as "outrageous desecration of the national game"?

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The Southern Football League is an English football competition featuring semi-professional and amateur clubs from the South West, South Central and Midlands of England. For historical reasons the Welsh club Merthyr Tydfil also currently play in the Southern League.

The structure of the Southern League has changed several times since its formation in 1894, and currently there are 65 clubs which are divided into three divisions. The Premier Division is at Level 3 of the National League System, and is a feeder division to Conference South. Feeding the Premier Division are two regional divisions, known as Division One Midlands and Division One South & West, which are at Level 4 of the system. These divisions are in turn fed by various regional leagues. For sponsorship reasons the Southern League is currently known as the British Gas Business Football League.

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Credit: en.wikipedia user Gloworm 44

Griffin Park is the football ground of League Two side Brentford. It is the only English league football ground to have a pub on each corner. The ground gets its name from the Griffin in the logo of Fuller's Brewery, which at one point owned the land on which the stadium was built.

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