History of the Premier League

The Premier League had its earliest beginnings in an previous league, that was known as the Football League. The League first began in 1888. This league basically consisted of competitions between professional football clubs from all over Wales and England. As it began in 1888, it is considered to be the oldest competition in World Football.

  The Football League was the highest football league in England from its beginning until 1992. Since 1995 until the present day, there are 72 clubs in the Football League, that break down into three divisions, League One, League Two and the Championship. One feature of the league is to give the top Championship clubs the opportunity to change places with the lowest ranked clubs from the Premiership.

It was the work of William McGregor,a director at Aston Villa, who first suggested the creation of a league competition to supply a number of fixtures for the club membership each season.

The meeting that started it all was held in London, on the very night of the Football Association Cup, in London at the Anderson Hotel, March 23, 1888. The Football League was officially formed and named at the Royal Hotel in Manchester on April 17, 1888.

By 1992, the resignation of the First Division clubs occurred when they sought to take an opportunity of a television rights deal. So then the Premiership was created on May 27, 1992. After 104 years the Football league was in for a change. A league that operated with four divisions, now was change to a Premier League and the Football League had three.

The competition format stayed the same, the regulation and promotion between the Premiership was put in place, and there was no change in competition format. The same number of teams competed in the top flight, and promotion and relegation between the Premier League and the new First Division remained on the same terms as between the old First and Second Divisions.

There have been seven steadfast clubs with membership since the very beginning of the Premiership competition for every single season. This group consists of Aston Villa, Arsenal, Everton, Chelsea, Manchester United, Liverpool, and Tottenham Hotspur.

While the League had been known as FA Premier League for many years, the name was changed in 2007 to just the Premier League. It is also commonly referred to as the Premiership.

Premiership Trivia

The record for the largest number of Premier League appearances is held by David James, beating the record of appearances made by Gary Speed in February of 2009.

Brian Deane, playing for Sheffield United scored the very first goal in the Premier League against Manchester United.

The all time record amount of transfer in the history of the sport involved a Premier League club selling Cristiano Ronaldo in 2009 to Manchester United for the sum of £80 million from Real Madrid.