Instruct: Given a question, retrieve passages that can help answer the question.
Query: When was Wimbledon Football Club formed?
Wimbledon Football Club was an English football club from Wimbledon, south-west London, amateur from 1889 to 1964 and professional thereafter. Founded in 1889 as Wimbledon Old Central Football Club, an amateur club playing in local league competitions, the club shortened its name to "Wimbledon" in 1905, entered the FA Amateur Cup for the first time in 1905–06 and joined the Spartan League in 1909. After going out of business a year later, Wimbledon immediately reformed and returned to local leagues in 1912, where the team stayed until the 1919–20 season when the club joined the Athenian League. Moving to the Isthmian League in 1921, Wimbledon won four league championships in six years during the 1930s and reached the FA Amateur Cup Final in 1935 before losing to Bishop Auckland after a replay. The club continued to be successful following the Second World War, again reaching the Amateur Cup Final in 1947 and finishing as runners-up in the Isthmian League in 1950 and 1952. After claiming a fourth Isthmian League crown in 1959, Wimbledon then took three successive championships from 1962 to 1964, as well as the 1963 FA Amateur Cup.
The English Football League, established in 1888 as The Football League by Aston Villa director William McGregor and renamed "English Football League" in 2016, was the first professional football league in the world. Since its founding, however, many other leagues have been founded in England. Sunday leagues are played each weekend by clubs, the study made by the FA sees to this. Over the years there has been an increasing effort to link all these leagues together in a Pyramidal structure allowing promotion and relegation between different levels. The primary motivation for this drive is to maintain the possibility that any club in England may dream of one day rising to the very top, no matter what status they currently hold. In a study made by FIFA in 2006 there are around 40,000 clubs registered with the FA, which is 11,000 more than any other country, the closest being the Brazilian Football Confederation who have 29,000 registered clubs. Even without taking relative population into account, England has more football clubs than any other country in the world.
F.W.F., as a leader of the pupils of the "Realgymnasium", initiated the formation of a football club and, together with 24 other young men, he formed the "Deutschen Fußball-Verein Hannover gegründet 1878", the oldest still existing rugby club in Germany.
YMCA Football Club was an Irish football club based in Belfast, formed by the members of the Belfast YMCA. It was founded in 1883 and competed as a senior club in the Irish Cup. Its best season was 1888-89, when the club reached the final of both the Irish Cup and the first County Antrim Shield, losing to Distillery on both occasions. The club also competed that season in the 1888-89 FA Cup. Later in 1889, however, the club folded, with most players joining Cliftonville, in what was described as an "amalgamation". In 1891, however, the YMCA Athletic Club acquired the Enfield ground on the Crumlin Road with a view to reviving the football team for the 1891-92 season. The revival was not a success, however, and the team, bottom of the league, resigned before Christmas. The club appears to have folded in 1892.
Berliner Fußball-Club Viktoria 1889 was a German sports club based in the Tempelhof district of Berlin. Football, rugby, and cricket came to continental Europe in the late 19th century, and these "English games" became immediately popular in many countries. Viktoria was the oldest club in Germany that had both teams playing football and cricket. It was one of the founding members of the German Football Association (DFB) in 1900.
A 2006 poll found that association football was the most popular sport in the UK. In England 320 football clubs are affiliated to The Football Association (FA) and more than 42,000 clubs to regional or district associations. The FA, founded in 1863, and the Football League, founded in 1888, were both the first of their kind in the world. In Scotland there are 78 full and associate clubs and nearly 6,000 registered clubs under the jurisdiction of the Scottish Football Association. Two Welsh clubs play in England's Football League, one in the Premier league, and others at non-league level, whilst the Welsh Football League contains 20 semi-professional clubs. In Northern Ireland, 12 semi-professional clubs play in the IFA Premiership, the second oldest league in the world.
The most popular sport in the UK became association football; Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club still in existence to the present day. The home nations all have separate national teams and domestic competitions, most notably England's Premier League and FA Cup, and the Scottish Premiership and Scottish Cup. Referred to as the "home of football" by the international governing body FIFA, England hosted and won the 1966 FIFA World Cup. The English Premier League (formed in 1992 by member clubs of the old Football League First Division) is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include: Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur. Scottish teams Celtic and Rangers also have a wide global fanbase.
The world's oldest football clubs were founded in England from 1789 and, in the 1871–72 season, the FA Cup was founded as the world's first organised competition. The first international match took place in November 1872 when England travelled to Glasgow to play Scotland. The quality of Scottish players was such that northern English clubs began offering them professional terms to move south. At first, the FA was strongly opposed to professionalism and that gave rise to a bitter dispute from 1880 until the FA relented and formally legitimised professionalism in 1885. A shortage of competitive matches led to the formation of the Football League by twelve professional clubs in 1888 and the domestic game has ever since then been based on the foundation of league and cup football.
Arsenal was founded at Woolwich in 1886. But In 1889, Woolwich became part of London, with the formation of London County Council. Arsenal moved from Woolwich in south London to Highbury in north London in 1913. They moved again to Holloway, a neighbourhood adjacent to Highbury, in 2006, though this was a much shorter distance than they had moved when relocating 93 years earlier, and kept the club in the London Borough of Islington.
The Rugby Club was formed in 1945 and was originally the Headquarters of the New South Wales Rugby Union and later the Australian Rugby Union and was where Wallabies touring teams were presented their jerseys. It was also where the Australian Rugby Union and New Zealand Rugby Union Boards agreed to establish the Rugby World Cup and later the Super Rugby and Tri-Nations competitions and the clubhouse of Sydney Harlequins who Participate in the New South Wales Suburban Rugby Union.
The original Molesey club was established by former Corinthian player James Jenkinson Knox in autumn 1892 under the name Hampton Court and East Molesey Association Football Club. Their first match was played on 24 September against Barnes, with the new club winning 14–5. They were renamed the Molesey Football Club in 1896, but following Knox's death a series of clubs emerged, including Molesey Athletic and Molesey St Mary's, before Molesey St Paul's was formed in 1905. The club absorbed Molesey Football Club in 1911 and became Molesey & St Paul's United, before being renamed Molesey Football Club. The club joined the Surrey Junior League in 1920 and won Section 3 in their first season, going on to win the championship playoffs with a 100 win over Godalming Federation. They also won the Surrey Junior Cup and the Surrey Junior Charity Cup.
Mansfield Town Football Club is an English professional association football club based in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. As of the 2016–17 season, they play in League Two, the fourth tier level of the English football league system. The club was formed in 1897 as Mansfield Wesleyans. In 1906, the club turned professional, after which the Methodist church disowned the club and forbade them to use the name "Wesleyans". The club reacted by changing its name to Mansfield Wesley, before adopting the current name Mansfield Town in 1910.
In 1864, the Carlton Football Club was established. In 1877, they were one of the founding clubs of the Victorian Football Association. In 1892, the Collingwood Football Club was established and admitted to the Association.
Molesey F.C. is a non-league football team based in West Molesey. The club is currently a member of the Isthmian League and play at the Herds Renault Stadium, Walton Road. The original football club was established by former Corinthian player James Jenkinson Knox in Autumn 1892 under the name Hampton Court and East Molesey Association Football Club. Their first match was played on 24 September 1892 against Barnes, winning 14–5. In 1946 Molesey United and West Molesey Old Boys merged to form Molesey Football Club. The new club joined the Surrey Intermediate League and won the league in their first season.
The club competed in the FA Cup in 1873, losing to Uxbridge F.C. in the first round, but did not enter the competition after that year.In 1891, an article in "Fores's Sporting Notes" reviewed a copy of the 1874 "Football Annual" and commented on how clubs have come and gone over time. The 1874 annual listed less than 200 football clubs in all of England, and by 1891 the author asked "what has become of such old giants as the Gitanos, Harrow Chequers, Pilgrims, and Woodford Wells."
was created as a sports club in 1922 and the volleyball department was introduced in 1942. Originally it had both men and women's teams until 1948 when the men's team was dissolved. The club played in regional and lower national leagues and when the national league was restructured in 1967, it gained a place in the elite league. The club proved to be competitive and after finishing second in 1972, it qualified for the first time to play in a European competition (Cup Winners Cup). In 1993, Chinese coach Yan Fang was hired and the club became very successful. For the next 23 seasons (from 1993–94 to 2015–16) under his coaching, the club won twenty French Championships (including eighteen consecutive titles from 1997–98 to 2014–15 and finish second in 1993–94, 1996–97 and 2015–16), nineteen French Cups (finish second in 1993–94, 1994–95, 2001–02 and 2014–15), two CEV Women's Champions League (in 2001–02 and 2002–03, finishing second in 2005–06 and 2011–12). The club has also won minor international tournaments, such as the Women's Top Volley International on six occasions (1990, December 1993, 1995, 1999, 2002 and 2005).
Rugby union took root in Wales in 1850, when Reverend Rowland Williams became Vice-Principal at St David's College, Lampeter, where he introduced the sport. Wales played their first international on 19 February 1881; organised by Newport's Richard Mullock, Wales played against England, losing by seven goals, one drop goal and six tries to nil (8–0). On 12 March 1881, the Welsh Rugby Union was formed at The Castle Hotel, Neath. Two years later, the Home Nation Championshipnow the Six Nations Championshipwas first played and Wales did not register a win. However, rugby in Wales developed and, by the 1890s, the Welsh had developed the four three-quarters formation. This formation – with seven backs and eight forwards, instead of six backs and nine forwards – revolutionised the sport and was eventually adopted almost universally at international and club level.
1842 was the 56th season of cricket in England since the foundation of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC). The official foundation of Kent County Cricket Club took place in Canterbury."6 August". Formation of the original Kent County Cricket Club in Canterbury; it was reformed as the present club in 1859. Teams representing Kent had been playing regularly since the early 18th century but these were invariably "ad hoc" sides raised by wealthy patrons.
Mansfield Town Football Club is an English association football club based in the Nottinghamshire town of Mansfield. Founded in 1897 as Mansfield Wesleyans, the team first entered the Mansfield & District Amateur League in 1902. Four years later, the club turned professional, tweaked its name to Mansfield Wesley, and joined the Notts & District League. The team made their debut in the FA Cup in 1909–10, and joined the Central Alliance in 1911, by which time the club had adopted its current name of Mansfield Town. In the first post-First World War season, they moved to the Field Mill ground and won the Central Alliance title, and in 1921, they were accepted into the Midland League. Three years later, they won the Midland League title, repeated the feat the following year, and were runners-up the next. Applications for election to the Football League were unsuccessful, but in the hope of a better class of football, they had one season in the Midland Combination, primarily a reserve league for Football League clubs, before returning to the Midland League. In 1928–29, Mansfield won the Midland League title by a nine-point margin and beat two Football League clubs on the way to their first appearance in the fourth round of the FA Cup, in which they lost 2–0 to Arsenal at Highbury.
Dresden English Football Club was founded on 18 March 1874 and was the first association football club in Germany, and likely the first outside Great Britain. In 1874, over 70 members participated, primarily Englishmen working in Dresden, watched by hundreds of spectators. Another German club, 1860 Munich did not play football until 1899, although it has its origins in a gymnastics and fitness club formed in 1848 and reestablished in the year indicated by its name.
Meanwhile, sons of the Basque educated classes had made the opposite journey and went to Britain to complete their studies in civil engineering and commerce. While in the United Kingdom, these students developed an interest in football and on their return to Bilbao they began to arrange games with British workers. In 1898, students belonging to the Gymnasium Zamacois founded the "Athletic Club", using the English spelling. In 1901, a meeting was held in the Café García, which established more formal rules and regulations. In 1902, the two Bilbao clubs formed a combined team, known as "Bizcaya", in the first Copa del Rey. They returned with the trophy after defeating Barcelona in the final. This would lead to the eventual merger of the two clubs as "Athletic Club" in 1903. In the same year, Basque students also formed "Athletic Club Madrid"; this club later evolved into Atlético Madrid. The club's foundation date is a subject of debate among football historians. The club itself declares 1898, but others claim 1901 or 1903 as the true founding year.
In 2001, after rejecting a variety of possible local sites and others further afield, the club announced its intention to move north to Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. The idea of Wimbledon leaving south London was deeply unpopular both with the bulk of the club's established fanbase and football supporters generally, but an independent commission appointed by the Football Association granted permission in May 2002. A group of supporters responded by forming a new club, AFC Wimbledon, to which the large majority of Wimbledon fans switched allegiance. Wimbledon F.C. played their first match in Milton Keynes in 2003 and changed their name to Milton Keynes Dons in 2004.
As soon as The Football Association approved this move in May 2002, former Wimbledon F.C. supporters founded their own replacement club, the semi-professional AFC Wimbledon, and the club's support overwhelmingly shifted to the new team, who in their second and third seasons of existence earned successive promotions to the First then Premier Divisions of the Isthmian League. The club also won the Combined Counties League Premier Challenge Cup in 2004 and the Surrey Senior Cup in 2005 to complete consecutive league and cup doubles, in one of which finishing the season unbeaten in the league. Another great achievement by the Wimbledon Independent Supporters Association (WISA) saw the return of the Patrimony of Wimbledon F.C. in 2007 to the care of Merton Council There is now a permanent display in Morden Library. In 2008 and 2009, AFC Wimbledon earned two more promotions, via the Conference South into the Conference Premier. On 21 May 2011, promotion to the football league was achieved when AFC Wimbledon won their Conference Premier play-off against Luton Town on penalty kicks (after a goalless draw and extra time) at City of Manchester Stadium This put Wimbledon back into English Football League, a remarkable achievement in such a short time. AFC Wimbledon were promoted again to League One now in the division above the franchise club in Milton Keynes (formerly Wimbledon F.C.).
At the end of the 1978–79 season, 20 leading non-League clubs left the Southern League and the Northern Premier League to form the Alliance Premier League. This national non-League division started in the 1979–80 season; it was called the Football Conference from 1986 to 2015, when it became the National League. Since the 1986–87 season, the champions of this league have received promotion to the Football League, with the League's bottom club being relegated in exchange. This was expanded to the Conference champions and the winners of a promotion play-off before the 2002–03 season, with the worst two Football League clubs being relegated. The situation of the Football League "closed shop", which for nearly a century effectively barred most non-League clubs from accession, therefore no longer exists. Any club in the English football pyramid (which also includes some clubs from Wales) can potentially win enough promotions to reach the Football League or the Premier League, the separate top division formed in 1992.
AFC Wimbledon is an English professional association football club, based in Kingston upon Thames, Greater London. The club was formed on 30 May 2002 by a group of supporters of Wimbledon Football Club, led by Kris Stewart, Marc Jones and Trevor Williams who strongly opposed the decision of an independent commission appointed by the FA to allow the relocation of Wimbledon F.C. to Milton Keynes, who were subsequently reformed as Milton Keynes Dons in 2004.