50 Fun Facts About English Football Clubs

Which club won the 2016 Premier League title after bookmakers had rated them 5,000–1 outsiders?

Leicester City's triumph triggered the largest payout in British sporting history, with winnings totalling £25 million. Two big bookmakers had offered the odds before a ball was kicked.

Which pop star became chairman of Watford, his boyhood team, in 1976?

Elton John has a stand named after him at Vicarage Road, the Watford ground where he has also staged fundraising concerts. He served two spells as chairman.

Which stadium did England great Bobby Charlton nickname the Theatre of Dreams?

Old Trafford has been Manchester United's home since 1910, though wartime bombing forced an eight-year exile at Maine Road, the ground of their local rivals.

Liverpool's anthem You'll Never Walk Alone comes from which Rodgers and Hammerstein musical?

Carousel dates from 1945, and its show tune reached Anfield after local band Gerry and the Pacemakers topped the UK chart with a cover in 1963.

Which club had London Underground's Gillespie Road station renamed in its honour in 1932?

Arsenal remain the only football club with a Tube station named directly after them. The change came while they played at nearby Highbury.

Which club's chairman had a statue of Michael Jackson put up at its London ground in 2011?

Fulham chairman Mohamed Al-Fayed commissioned the statue because the singer was his friend. Jackson had watched only one match there, and the statue later moved to the National Football Museum.

Which famous ship appears on Plymouth Argyle's club crest?

The Mayflower carried the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth to Massachusetts in 1620, which is also why Argyle are nicknamed the Pilgrims.

Which diet did Forest Green Rovers adopt across the whole club in 2015, a world first in football?

Vegan menus were only the start for Forest Green Rovers: the United Nations later recognised the Gloucestershire side as the world's first carbon-neutral football club.

Which club, the world's oldest professional football club, gave Juventus their famous striped kit?

Notts County's colours reached Turin when an English Juventus player asked a friend back home for new kit to replace the Italian club's pink shirts.

Which club's monkey mascot, H'Angus, was elected mayor of its home town in 2002?

Hartlepool United's mascot was played by Stuart Drummond, who promised free bananas for schoolchildren and went on to be re-elected with a bigger majority.

Which club supplied Bobby Moore, Geoff Hurst and Martin Peters to England's 1966 World Cup winners?

West Ham United's three are honoured by the Champions statue near the club's former ground. Hurst scored the first hat-trick in a World Cup final.

Sheffield Wednesday take their unusual name from a club that met midweek to play which other sport?

Cricket was the game of The Wednesday Cricket Club, named for the half-day its founders had off work. The football offshoot of 1867 kept the name.

Norwich City's nickname and club badge both feature which bird?

The Canaries replaced an older nickname, the Citizens, after a chairman who bred the birds changed the strip to yellow and green.

Which striker joined Newcastle United, his hometown club, for a world record £15 million in 1996?

Alan Shearer repaid the fee at once, winning the Premier League Golden Boot in his first season back on Tyneside. It was his third in a row.

Which club's Crazy Gang stunned league champions Liverpool to win the 1988 FA Cup final?

Wimbledon captain Dave Beasant became the first goalkeeper to save a penalty in an FA Cup final. The club had been elected to the Football League only in 1977.

Leeds United switched to an all-white kit in the 1960s to imitate which European giant?

Real Madrid were the model picked by manager Don Revie, whose restyled Leeds side won promotion to the First Division in 1964.

Manchester United began in 1878 as a railway workers' team under which name?

Newton Heath was the depot of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway whose carriage and wagon workers formed the side. The present name arrived in 1902.

Which club was founded in 1905 because a businessman needed a team to fill his new stadium?

Chelsea exist only because a neighbouring club turned down the lease on Stamford Bridge, leaving owner Gus Mears to start a side of his own.

Which club takes part of its name from Sir Henry Percy, a rebel knight killed in battle in 1403?

Tottenham Hotspur began on land linked to the knight's family, the Dukes of Northumberland, and in 1963 became the first British club to win a European trophy.

Which manager won the league with Derby County, then two European Cups with Nottingham Forest?

Brian Clough took Derby up as Second Division champions and, three years later, made them champions of England for the first time, working alongside Peter Taylor.

Which club played at Anfield until a rent dispute in 1892 forced a move to Goodison Park?

Everton's exit left the landowner with an empty ground, so he founded Liverpool to play there. The two rivals ended up on opposite sides of the same park.

Anfield's famous Kop terrace takes its name from a hill fought over in which colonial-era war?

The Boer War battle of Spion Kop in 1900 was fought on a steep South African hill, which the banked terraces at several British grounds were said to resemble.

Which Scottish manager won 13 league titles with Manchester United between 1986 and 2013?

Alex Ferguson collected 38 trophies in all, making him the longest-serving and most successful manager in the club's history.

Which club won the 1995 Premier League title, bankrolled by local steel magnate Jack Walker?

Blackburn Rovers were a second-tier side when the lifelong supporter took over, and their title was the club's first league championship for 81 years.

Which London club's first home, from 1905, was the ground that then staged the FA Cup final?

Crystal Palace took their name from the glass exhibition building beside the pitch, and stayed until the First World War forced them out in 1915.

Which Stoke City winger, knighted while still a player, appeared in the top flight at the age of 50?

Stanley Matthews was the first winner of the European Footballer of the Year award and was still playing for England at 42.

Which club won the very first Football League title unbeaten, earning the nickname the Invincibles?

Preston North End also won that season's FA Cup without conceding a single goal, completing the first Double in English football.

Which seaside club has worn tangerine shirts since 1923 and plays at Bloomfield Road?

Blackpool moved to Bloomfield Road in 1901, after amalgamating with local rivals South Shore during a season spent out of the League.

Which club is nicknamed the Hatters after a local trade that dates back centuries?

Luton Town still carry a straw boater on their badge, and a mascot called Happy Harry wears one on the pitch before matches.

Which club began as a church football team called St Mary's, the origin of its saintly nickname?

Southampton are still the Saints, and since 2001 they have played at a stadium that carries the church's name.

Which Welsh club took the FA Cup out of England for the first time by winning the 1927 final?

Cardiff City also lifted the Welsh Cup that spring, which made them holders of the national cups of two countries in the same season.

Which club held the FA Cup for the whole of the Second World War after winning the 1939 final?

Portsmouth kept the trophy until the competition resumed in 1945–46, so a single win made them cup holders for seven years.

Which club won the 2013 FA Cup and was relegated from the Premier League just three days later?

Wigan Athletic became the first team to lift the cup and go down in the same season, ending an eight-year stay in the top flight.

Which distinctive shirt colour have Wolverhampton Wanderers worn for much of the club's history?

Old gold replaced the red and white that the club's founders had borrowed from the colours of St Luke's school.

The derby between Wolves and West Bromwich Albion is named after which industrial region?

The Black Country also claims Walsall, so matches involving that third club from the West Midlands carry the same derby name.

Which club's director William McGregor founded the Football League, the world's first, in 1888?

Aston Villa's McGregor acted after seeing the club's matches cancelled on five consecutive Saturdays, to the growing frustration of supporters.

Which manager took over Liverpool in the Second Division and went on to win three league titles?

Bill Shankly is remembered by the Shankly Gates at Anfield, which his widow Nessie unlocked for the first time in 1982.

Stoke City supporters adopted which Tom Jones hit as their terrace anthem?

Delilah's adoption is disputed: one fan says he started it in a pub before a 1987 away game, while others recall it on the terraces in the 1970s. Welsh rugby crowds sing it too.

Millwall moved in 1993 to which south London ground, named after the club's previous home?

The Den is a fitting address for a club whose crest shows a rampant lion and whose nickname is the Lions.

Sunderland left Roker Park in 1997 for which new home, built on the site of a coal mine?

The Stadium of Light was named by the club chairman to reflect the coal-mining heritage of the North East and the Monkwearmouth Colliery that once stood there.

Which Devon club became the first team to face Brazil's national side, on a 1914 tour?

Exeter City played eight matches in Argentina and Brazil on the trip and lost the last of them 2–0 to Brazil's new national side in Rio de Janeiro.

Which club became the first to win three successive English league titles, between 1924 and 1926?

Huddersfield Town won the first two under Herbert Chapman, but he had left by the time Cecil Potter completed the hat-trick.

Which club is based in an English border town yet plays its football in the Scottish league system?

Berwick Rangers' home, Berwick-upon-Tweed, lies two and a half miles south of the border and is closer to Edinburgh than to Newcastle.

Which club was managed by both Alf Ramsey and Bobby Robson before each took charge of England?

Ipswich Town won the league title under Ramsey in 1961–62, their very first season in the top flight, and lifted the UEFA Cup under Robson in 1981.

Which London club's former ground, Griffin Park, was famous for having a pub on each corner?

Brentford's old home was even named after one of the pubs, The Griffin, which belonged to the brewery of the same name.

Which club was once nicknamed the Biscuitmen after the Huntley & Palmers factory in its home town?

Reading are now known as the Royals, a nickname taken from the Royal County of Berkshire.

Which club plays its home games at Blundell Park in Cleethorpes, not in the port it is named after?

Grimsby Town, known as the Mariners, are in fact based in the neighbouring seaside resort in North East Lincolnshire.

Which two-time FA Cup winner was expelled from the Football League in 2019 over financial troubles?

Bury had won the 1903 final by a record 6–0, but 116 years later the club could not even begin its league season.

West Bromwich Albion play at which ground, the highest above sea level of any English league club?

The Hawthorns stands 551 feet above sea level, higher than the home of any other Premier League or Football League club.

Which Hollywood actor bought Wrexham with Rob McElhenney, inspiring a hit documentary series?

Ryan Reynolds and his partner took over a fifth-tier side, and the series Welcome to Wrexham won the Welsh club a new global fanbase.