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Continuing my history lesson from a few days ago, when the Football Association was formed, it was i...
Continuing my history lesson from a few days ago, when the Football Association was formed, it was intended to be purely for teams of amateurs: wealthy gentlemen who played for enjoyment rather than to make a profit. The FA Cup competition began in the 1871-1872 season and until 1882, the winners were all high-class teams from the South, such as the Royal Engineers and the Old Etonians. In the 1880s, some teams in the North began to recruit better players by paying them and the FA officially permitted professionalism from 1885. Some of the professional clubs in the North and the Midlands then decided that they needed a regular source of income so in 1888, they created the Football League, in which each team plays each other team once at home and once away each season. The next four towns on my list all had clubs among the original twelve members of the League. In three of those towns, the club which is in the League now is the same one as in that 1888-1889 season. Two of them are the only two teams from that season still playing at their original grounds.

When I was planning this trip last year, the four teams formed a good cross-section of the League because they were one from each of the top four divisions. Due to a promotion and a relegation though, three of them are now in the second division.


UTC Time: 11:09, Tuesday 18 August 2015
Local Time: 12:09, Tuesday 18 August 2015
Estimate of longitude: 2° 14' 3.08" W = -2.234190°
Estimate of latitude: 53° 47' 19.82" N = 53.788840°
Possible error on position estimate: 100 metres