I won’t beat around the bush. In 1888 the game of football was a shambles, a total hotchpotch. The professional game had been legalised three years earlier but the clubs were now getting their collective knickers in a twist over their fixture lists.

They had FA Cup matches, inter-county games and one-off friendlies, all of which would often get cancelled at the last minute if the club received a more lucrative offer to play someone else.

Clearly something needed doing. And the man who was going to do the doing was one William McGregor.

McGregor saw that the clubs needed an organised, stable league to compete in to bring some order to the game and stop the shambolic nature of each club’s season. And so was born the Football League.

It was on this day in 1888 that the first matches of this new fangled league kicked off, marking the beginning of the structure which still governs football in England today.

McGregor was a Scotsman who had come down to Birmingham to open up a linen draper’s shop. His shop was near Villa Park and, as they had three Scots in the team at the time, McGregor began to support the Villains and he eventually became a director of the club - coincidentally on the same day that Doug Ellis, already well into his eighties, joined the board.



McGregor wrote to several clubs with his league idea and some of them liked it enough to join. The first season saw 12 teams compete for the title: Preston North End, Bolton Wanderers, Everton, Burnley, Accrington, Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa, West Bromwich Albion, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Notts County, Derby County and Stoke. The League members rejected one points system of 1 point for a win and nothing for a draw in favour of the 2 for a win, 1 for a draw system that would remain in place until Jimmy Hill came along many moons later.

Today being the day of the first ever matches of the new league, it was obviously also the day the first goal was scored in the new league, and hence there would be a first goal scorer - imagine that, the first EVER name to come up on the vidi-printer thing under Steve Rider’s face on Grandstand.

Sadly, records are patchy on this subject, with most people’s best guess being Jack Gordon of Preston North End, although this is disputed by some who believe Preston’s game that day kicked off 45 minutes later than others.

Preston went the whole season without losing a match and were not only the first ever winners of the Football League, but also the first team in history to do the league and cup double, as they also won the FA Cup that season.
Right, that’s your lot for today but mosey on back into town tomorrow to see which former Palace player still isn’t Finnished playing.

1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (2 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...