125 years of the Football League and the top flight - which team comes top? | Football | theguardian.com
125 years of the Football League and the top flight - which team comes top?
Which teams have the upper hand after a century and a quarter of football?
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Preston North End, unbeaten in 22 games 1888. Photograph: Howard Barlow
Today exactly 125 years ago, The English Football League was founded at the Royal Hotel in Manchester, becoming the first national football league in the world. Twelve teams started into the first season on September 8 1888, which would produce Preston North End as their very first champions.
We've crunched the numbers of all 113 top flight seasons (1888-1892: Football League, 1892-1992: First Division, 1992-today: Premier League ). Eleven seasons had been suspended during the first and second world wars.
Since the foundation of the Football League, a total of 64 teams have played at least one season in the respective top flight of English football. Everton, one of the twelve founding members, is currently playing its 110th season in the top league, having missed only four for two spells in the second division. It is topping the list of most seasons played in the top flight.
23 teams have been crowned champions at least once, Manchester United (19 titles), Liverpool (18) and Arsenal (13) being the most successful collectors of silverware.
If we combine the two metrics – championships won and seasons played in the top league – we can calculate an efficiency index in winning tropies when in the race. Which puts Huddersfield Town right in the top group along the above serial winners.
From a geographical perspective, London might have been and still be the city with by far the most teams, but its the North-Western cities that picked up most of the trophies to date. Our map shows how the 113 championship trophies have been spread across the country.
Over all 113 completed seasons, the average number of goals scored is just above three per game. It has been the highest in the very beginning, at 4.63 in the second season. After being at a steady low for the past fourty years, average goals scored per game have been rising again in the past three seasons. They are now – at a current 2.83 goals per game – on course to finish higher than in any other season since 1967-68.
Finally, if we count every single game played in England's top league since it was founded towards one table, this is what it would look like as of April 14 2013. Points are counted as they were awarded at the time, so two points for a win until 1981, three afterwards (did you know that the initial idea of the founders was to award points for wins only, so that it would make no difference if you drew or lost a game?).
What can you do with this data?
Data summary