Instruct: Given a question, retrieve relevant passages that can help answer the question.
Query: How many professional football clubs are there in England?
English football has a league system which incorporates thousands of clubs, and is topped by four fully professional divisions. The elite Premier League has 20 teams and is the richest football league in the world. The other three fully professional divisions are the run by the English Football League, the oldest league in the world, and include another 72 clubs. Annual promotion and relegation operates between these four divisions and also between the lowest of them and lower level or "non-League" football. There are a small number of fully professional clubs outside the top four divisions, and many more semi-professional clubs. Thus England has over a hundred fully professional clubs in total, which is considerably more than any other country in Europe.
Cricket in England is one of the most popular sports in the country and is known to have been played in England since the 16th century. The Marylebone Cricket Club, based at Lords, developed the modern rules of play and conduct.There are eighteen professional county clubs, seventeen of them in England and one in Wales. All eighteen counties are named after, and were originally representative of, historic counties. These clubs are heavily dependent on subsidies from the England and Wales Cricket Board, which makes its money from television and endorsement contracts and attendances at international matches. The English cricket season traditionally starts at the beginning of April and runs though to the second half of September although in recent years counties have played pre season friendly matches at the very end of March.
The rules of football were first drafted in 1863 by Ebenezer Cobb Morley, and England has the oldest football clubs in the world. Recognised by FIFA as the birthplace of club football, Sheffield F.C., founded in 1857, is the world's oldest football club. The first ever international football match was between England and Scotland in 1872. Referred to by the sport's governing body FIFA as the "home of football", England hosted the 1966 FIFA World Cup, and won the tournament. With a 32.3 million viewing audience, the 1966 final is the most watched television event ever in the United Kingdom. The English Barclays Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world. Its biggest clubs include Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester City. In 2016, Leicester City, who were 5,000-1 outsiders at the start of the season, became champions. By some measures it was the greatest sporting upset ever: multiple bookmakers had never paid out at such long odds for any sport. As is the case throughout the UK, football in England is renowned for the intense rivalries between clubs and the passion of the supporters, which includes a tradition of football chants, such as, "You're Not Singing Any More" (or its variant "We Can See You Sneaking Out!"), sung by jubilant fans towards the opposition fans who have gone silent (or left early).
The modern game of lawn tennis originated in Birmingham, England, in the 1860s, and after its creation, tennis spread throughout the upper-class English-speaking population, before spreading around the world. Major Walter Clopton Wingfield is credited as being a pioneer of the game. The world's oldest tennis tournament, the Wimbledon championships, first occurred in 1877, and today the event takes place over two weeks in late June and early July. Created in the Tudor period in the court of Henry VIII, the English dessert strawberries and cream is synonymous with the British summer, and is famously consumed at Wimbledon.
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.
Manchester City and Manchester United are popular Premier League football clubs in Manchester, United's ground is in Old Trafford, and fixtures between the clubs are referred to as the Manchester Derby. Manchester United are the most successful football club in England with 66 elite honours won (Including three European Cups) and Manchester City are ranked seventh in England by the number of elite honours won with a total of 21. Manchester has hosted every major domestic, continental and international football competition, including the World Cup in 1966, the European Championship in 1996, Olympic Football in 2012, the 2003 UEFA Champions League Final, the 2008 UEFA Cup Final, 1893, 1911, 1915 and 1970 FA Cup Finals and 1977, 1978 and 1984 Football League Cup Final.
The Rugby League European Federation are responsible for developing rugby league in Europe and the Northern Hemisphere,
In England, rugby league has traditionally been associated with the northern counties of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria where the game originated, especially in towns along the M62 corridor. Its popularity has also increased elsewhere. Currently, only one of the twelve Super League teams is based outside of these traditional counties: Catalans Dragons (Perpignan). Two other teams from outside the United Kingdom, the Toronto Wolfpack and Toulouse Olympique, also compete in the English Rugby League system. Both teams will play in the Rugby League Championship in 2018.
Rugby league came into existence due to the very issue of professionalism. Rugby football split into 'union' and 'league' over the issue of payment to player. Rugby league favoured payments and has thus been a professional sport since its beginnings in 1895, when 22 clubs based in northern England split from the more amateur-minded Rugby Football Union. The officially amateur RFU had previously brought charges of professionalism against some clubs for their use of "broken time" payments to compensate players for missing work due to matches or injuries received whilst playing. On August 29, 1895 in a meeting at the George Hotel, Huddersfield, the clubs decided to break away and form the Northern Rugby Union, which later would become the Rugby Football League. The rules of rugby league were gradually changed so that now it and rugby union are distinctly different games, however rugby union has since turned professional as well. On 17 December 1967 the first professional Sunday matches of rugby league were played.
National Football League, established in 1996 by governing body All India Football Federation (AIFF) was the first "semi-professional" football league in India. 
The League was renamed and restructured and the I-League was founded in 2006 after India's former top league the National Football League disbanded in a successful effort aimed at increasing the game in India. Links with clubs that were not in the I-League were maintained, and each season the bottom two clubs are relegated from the I-League and replaced by two from the I-League 2nd Division. The I-League is currently contested between 11 clubs. The Kolkata Derby in the I League (and other tournaments) played between Mohun Bagan and East Bengal is one of the most fierce rivalries in the world (featured in FIFA website) and one of the oldest derbies in the world (90 years). An average 80, 000 to 100, 000 supporters throng the stadium in this special fixture.
In total, FIFA recognises 211 national associations and their associated men's national teams as well as 129 women's national teams; see the list of national football teams and their respective country codes. FIFA has more member states than the UN as FIFA recognises 23 non-sovereign entities as distinct nations, such as the four Home Nations within the United Kingdom and politically disputed territories such as Palestine.
Like association football, rugby union and rugby league both developed from traditional British football games in the 19th century. Rugby football was codified in 1871. Dissatisfaction with the governance of the sport led, in 1895, to a number of prominent clubs establishing what would become rugby league. The estranged clubs, based in mainly working class industrial regions of northern England, had wished to be allowed to compensate their players for missing work to play matches but they had been opposed by those clubs that were predominantly middle class and often based in the south of the country. Subsequently, rugby league developed somewhat different rules. For much of the 20th century there was considerable antagonism towards rugby league from rugby union. One Member of Parliament described it as "one of the longest (and daftest) grievances in history" with anyone over the age of 18 associated with rugby league being banned forever from rugby union. This antagonism has abated since 1995 when rugby union's international governing body, now known as World Rugby, "opened" rugby union to professionalism.
While there are various semi-professional football leagues, none have any affiliation with the National Football League (NFL). The NFL and its teams have had working relationships with several independent leagues in the past, including the Association of Professional Football Leagues, the Atlantic Coast Football League, and most recently, the league owned-and-operated NFL Europe. In modern times, the NFL has developed players not ready for the active roster through each team's practice squad.
Rugby refers to the team sports rugby league and rugby union. Legend claims that Rugby football was started around the time of 1845 in Rugby School, Rugby, Warwickshire, England, although forms of football in which the ball was carried and tossed date to medieval times. Rugby eventually split into two sports in 1895 when twenty one clubs split from the original Rugby Football Union, to form the Northern Union (later to be named rugby league in 1922) in the George Hotel, Huddersfield, Northern England over the issue of payment to players, thus making rugby league the first code to turn professional and pay its players, rugby union turned fully professional in 1995. Both sports are run by their respective world governing bodies World Rugby (rugby union) and the Rugby League International Federation (rugby league). Rugby football was one of many versions of football played at English public schools in the 19th century. Although rugby league initially used rugby union rules, they are now wholly separate sports. In addition to these two codes, both American and Canadian football evolved from rugby football.
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.
Blackpool F.C. is a professional association football club in the seaside town of Blackpool, Lancashire, England, which competes in League One, the third tier of English football. Founded in 1887, Blackpool's home ground since 1901 has been Bloomfield Road.
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."
Wimbledon Football Club was an English football club formed in Wimbledon, south-west London, in 1889 and based at Plough Lane from 1912 to 1991. Founded as Wimbledon Old Centrals, the club were a non-League team for most of their history. Nicknamed "the Dons" and latterly "the Wombles", they won eight Isthmian League titles, the FA Amateur Cup in 1963 and three successive Southern League championships between 1975 and 1977, and were then elected to the Football League. The team rose quickly from obscurity during the 1980s and were promoted to the then top-flight First Division in 1986, just four seasons after being in the Fourth Division.
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.
An emerging variant is club-based fantasy football in which participants select players from within their own club. Participating clubs typically have more than one football team and adopt club fantasy football to increase communication and banter between teams. Some clubs charge a nominal amount for players to enter a team and either use the proceeds as a fundraiser or to fund the fantasy league prizes. Club fantasy football leagues tend to be less sophisticated than the national variety since most clubs run them on a spreadsheet. Niche sports websites now offer online versions with both paid and free versions available.
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 club is based in Cardiff and plays most of its home games at Sophia Gardens, which is located on the bank of the River Taff. Matches have also occasionally been played at Swansea, Colwyn Bay and Cresselly (despite the latter towns being in Denbighshire and Pembrokeshire respectively).
The Eastern Counties Roller Hockey Association, historically the least successful, is currently the most decorated affiliation to the NRHA. It has the most clubs and members out of the three regions, and covers counties including Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire. Its most famous clubs include Bury St. Edmunds and Letchworth, which are regular senior Premier League competitors, with the former winning the league title back in 2005, and the latter winning the National Cup the same year.
Most of the National League clubs are fully professional, while most National League North and National League South clubs are semi-professional. The professional clubs are sometimes clubs which have been in the English Football League (EFL) in the past, as opposed to those which have always been non-League. The National League is the lowest of the five nationwide football divisions in England, below the Premier League and the three divisions of the EFL, and is the top tier of the National League System of non-League football. The National League North and National League South form the sixth tier of English football. The National League consisted of only one division until 2004, but expanded as part of an extensive restructuring of the National League System which took effect beginning with the 2004–05 season.
Football is the most popular sport, both in terms of participants and spectators, in London. London has several of England's leading football clubs, and the city is home to thirteen professional clubs, several dozen semi-professional clubs and several hundred amateur clubs regulated by the London Football Association, Middlesex County Football Association, Surrey County Football Association and the Amateur Football Alliance. Most London clubs are named after the district in which they play or used to play, and share rivalries with each other.
The 12-team Premiership is the top level of competition; it is fully professional, but has a salary cap in place. The RFU Championship (formerly National Division One) and National League 1 (formerly National Division Two) are the next rungs down. The Championship became fully professional in 2009–10; League 1 is semi-professional. Below this there are many regional leagues. Attendances at club rugby in England have risen strongly since the sport went professional. Some clubs have good all seater grounds in the 10,000–25,000 capacity range; some have older grounds which are still partly terraced, and others play in council-owned joint-use stadia. Some clubs rent stadia from football clubs.
Football in England developed a very different system from the North American one, and it has been adopted for football in most other European countries, as well as to many other sports founded in Europe and played across the world. The features of the system are:European football clubs are members both of a league and of a governing body. In the case of England, all competitive football clubs are members of The Football Association, while the top 20 teams also are members of the Premier League, a separate organization. The 72 teams in the three levels below the Premier League are members of still another body, the English Football League. The FA operates the national football team and tournaments that involve teams from different leagues (except the EFL Cup, operated by the English Football League and open to its own teams and those in the Premier League). In conjunction with FIFA and other countries' governing bodies, it also sets the playing rules and the rules under which teams can sell players' contracts to other clubs.