Portal:English football
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Football is of incredible importance to the English public and 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.
Sunderland Association Football Club is a professional football club, based at the Stadium of Light in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, in North-East England. They play in the Premier League. They moved to the Stadium of Light in 1997 after 99 years at Roker Park. The Sunderland fans were recently voted the loudest in the Premiership following a survey which was carried out at every ground in the league. Before the Second World War, Sunderland were league champions six times - in 1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913, and most recently in 1936, when they became the last team wearing striped shirts to win the league. They were elected into the football league in 1890, becoming the first team to join after the league's birth in 1888. Sunderland stayed in the top flight until 1958, a record which only Arsenal have bettered since, in 1992. The club won their first FA Cup in 1937 with a 3-1 victory over Preston North End.
The Football Association Challenge Vase is an annual football competition for teams playing in the lower regional leagues of England. Currently over 400 teams compete each season, with two qualifying rounds preceding the six proper rounds, semi-finals and final.
Until 1974, football players were either professionals or amateurs. Professionals were paid to play by their clubs, and the only cup competitions such clubs were allowed to enter were the FA Cup and, for clubs outside The Football League, the FA Trophy. Amateurs, on the other hand, did not get paid by their clubs, and such clubs had their own cup competition, the FA Amateur Cup.
When a ball is kicked out of play on the side of the pitch, the game is resumed with a throw-in. Here, Arsenal player Abou Diaby returns the ball into play.
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