Portal:English football

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The English Football Portal

Football in England is of incredible importance to the English public, as it is the national sport of England, and as such has an important place within English national life. The sport is almost always referred to simply as football; it is unusual for it to be called soccer and it is only referred to as "association football" in very limited circumstances. Any unqualified reference to football in an English context should be read as a reference to association football rather than to any other member of the football family of sports.

Kicking ball games are described in England since at least 1280. England can boast the earliest ever documented use of the English word "football" (1409) and the earliest reference to football in French (1314). A description of an exclusively kicking ball game from Nottinghamshire in the fifteenth century bears similarity to football. There is good evidence for refereed, team "foteball" games being played in English public schools since at least 1581. The modern global game of football was first codified in 1863 in London by the English Football Association, the oldest football association in the world. The modern passing game is believed to have been innovated in London in the early 1870s. England is home to the oldest association football clubs in the world (dating from at least 1857), the world's oldest competition (the FA Cup founded in 1871) and the first ever football league (1888). For these reasons England is considered the home of the game of football.

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The City of Manchester Stadiumis a sports venuein Manchester, England. Originally designed as part of Manchester's failed bidfor the 2000 Summer Olympics, the stadium was built for the 2002 Commonwealth Gamesat a cost of GB£110 million.

After the Games, it was converted for use as a football ground. This conversion involved removing the running track and installing it elsewhere and also adding 12,000 more seats. The operation cost over £35 million and took a year to complete before it became the home of Manchester City F.C., who moved there from Maine Road in 2003 signing a 250-year lease.

The stadium is bowl-shaped, with two tiers all the way around the ground and a third tier along the two side stands. As of 23 June 2007, it is the fifth largest stadium in the FA Premier League and tenth largest in the United Kingdom with a seating capacity of 47,726. On 4 October 2006 it was announced that the stadium will host the 2008 UEFA Cup Final.

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Did you know...

...that footballer Francis Lee (pictured) earned his nickname Lee One Pen by setting an English record for the most penalties scored in a single season?

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

...that Bob McGrory managed the English football team Stoke City for a period of 17 years, having previously played for the club for 14 years?

...that the Gay Football Supporters Network recently voted Steven Gerrard top of their annual "Lust List" for the second year running?

...that the first player to score a hat-trick during the final of a World Cup was Geoff Hurst in England's 4-2 win against Germany in the 1966 World Cup? Two of his goals scored within 120 minutes are controversial, though.

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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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Football • England • English football task force

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Credit: sport.pl

The Sheffield F.C. team in 1857. Sheffield F.C. are regarded as the oldest football club in the world and were awarded the FIFA Order of Merit in 2004 to reflect this. The amateur team played Inter Milan in 2007 to celebrate their 150th anniversary at Bramall Lane with Pele as the guest of honour.

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