FC Arsenal – A brief history

West Ham Wembley As of the 2012-13 season, there are fourteen professional football teams in London, six play in the Premier League and eight in the Football League. Wembley is also shown. Football is the most popular sport, both in terms of participants and spectators, in London. [l] London has several of England's leading football clubs, and the city is home to fourteen professional teams and more than 80 amateur leagues regulated by the London Football Association. [2] Most London clubs are named after the district in which they play or used to play.Fulham is London's oldest club still playing professionally, having been founded in 1879. Royal Arsenal were London's first team to turn professional in 1891. Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur are London's most successful teams in domestic and European competitions. Between them, they've won a total of 84 titles and trophies. Wembley Stadium, England's national stadium is in London. It is the home venue of the England national foo tball team and has traditionally hosted the FA Cup Final since 1923. On 19 May 2012, Chelsea became the first London club to become European champions after winning the 2011-12 UEFA Champions League.History The playing of team ball games (almost certainly including football) was first recorded n London by William FitzStephen around 1174-1183. He described the activities of London youths during the annual festival of Shrove Tuesday. The playing of some form of football in London has been well documented since its creation in 1314. Regular references to the game occurred throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, including the first reference to word â€Å"football† in English when it was outlawed by King Henry IV of England in 1409. Early games were probably disorganised and violent.In the sixteenth century, the headmaster of St Paul's School Richard Mulcaster is credited with taking mob football and transforming it into rganised and refereed team football. In 1581 he described in English his game of football, which included smaller teams, referees, set positions and even a coach. Royal Engineers A. F. C. , 1872 The modern game of football was first codified in 1863 in London and subsequently spread worldwide. Key to the establishment of the modern game was Londoner Ebenezer Cobb Morley who was a founding member of the Football Association, the oldest football organisation in the world.Morley wrote to Bell's Life newspaper proposing a governing body for football which led directly to the first meeting at the Freemasons' Tavern in central London of the FA. He wrote the first set of rules of true modern football at his house in Barnes. The modern passing game was invented in London in the early 1870s by the Royal Engineers Prior to the first meeting of the Football Association in the Freemasons' Tavern in Great Queen Street, London on 26 October 1863, there were no universally accepted rules for the playing of the game of football.