Portal:English football

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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. It also has 31% of the population interested in Football. 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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The FA National League System Cup is a football competition run by The Football Association. It was created in the 2003-04 season to provide an English representative in the UEFA Regions' Cup.

In previous Regions' Cups, the FA had nominated a team to take part; in the 2002-03 season it was a Kent County League XI. UEFA decreed that in the future all Regions' Cup entrants must have won a national competition, and so the NLS Cup was formed.

The cup is contested by representative sides from leagues at level 7 of the National League System with a few other leagues permitted by the FA. That is roughly at the county level or eleventh overall tier of the English football league system. The first final was held on May 8, 2004, and was won by the Mid Cheshire League, who beat the Cambridgeshire County League 2-0.

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Fans at Gillingham's playoff final
Fans at Gillingham's playoff final
Credit: Wikipedia user Nigelpm

Gillingham supporters at the second division play-off final between their side and Manchester City. Gillingham had been promoted from the third division only the previous season, and despite leading by two goals, lost out on a penalty shoot-out.

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