Manchester City entered the Football League in 1899, and won their first major honour with the FA Cup in 1904. Manchester City had been league champions once and FA Cup winners twice by 1939, but enjoyed further success in the post-war years, starting with an FA Cup win in 1956. The club's next success came more than a decade later, with a league championship triumph in 1968, an FA Cup triumph in 1969, and a double of the European Cup Winners' Cup and Football League Cup in 1970 under the management of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison. Great players of the 1950s and 1960s sides included Don Revie, Bert Trautmann, Francis Lee, Colin Bell and Tony Book. They won the League Cup in 1976 but after  losing the 1981 FA Cup Final, the club went through a period of decline, which eventually saw them relegated as far down as third tier of English football by the end of the 1997–98 season.