Description

100% Brand New

Size: 43cm (17 inch)

Scale: 1: 1

Weight: 4.1kg

Color: Sterling Silver

Material: Resin

Background

After four years of debate, the Football Association finally permitted professionalism on 20 July 1885.

Before that date many clubs made payments to “professional” players to boost the competitiveness of their teams, breaking FA rules and arousing the contempt of those clubs abiding by the laws of the amateur Football Association code. As more and more clubs became professional the ad-hoc fixture list of FA Cup, inter-county, and ordinary matches was seen by many as an unreliable stream of revenue, and ways were considered of ensuring a consistent income. A Scottish director of Birmingham-based Aston Villa, William McGregor, was the first to set out to bring some order to a chaotic world where clubs arranged their own fixtures, along with various cup competitions.

On 22 March 1888, he wrote to the committee of his own club, Aston Villa, as well as to those of Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Preston North End, Stoke and West Bromwich Albion; suggesting the creation of a league competition that would provide a number of guaranteed fixtures for its member clubs each season. His idea might have been based upon a description of a proposal for an early American college football league, publish in the English media in 1887 which stated: “measures would be taken to form a new football league a schedule containing two championship games between every two colleges composing the league”.

The first meeting was held at Anderton’s Hotel in London on 23 March 1888 on the eve of the FA Cup Final. The Football League was formally created and named in Manchester at a further meeting on 17 April at the Royal Hotel. The name “Association Football Union” was proposed by McGregor but this was felt too close to “Rugby Football Union”