page_title: Football in England
section_title: Post-World War II
hierarchical_section_title: Football in England / History of English football / Post-World War II
caption_attribution_description: The Hillsborough Memorial
context_page_description: Association football is the most popular sport in England, where the first modern set of rules for the code were established in 1863, which were a major influence on the development of the modern Laws of the Game. With over 40,000 association football clubs, England has more clubs involved in the code than any other country as well as the world's first club, the world's oldest professional association football club, the oldest national governing body, the joint-first national team, the oldest national knockout competition and the oldest national league. Today England's top domestic league, the Premier League, is one of the most popular and richest sports leagues in the world, with six of the ten richest football clubs in the world as of 2019.
  The England national football team is one of only eight teams to win the World Cup, having done so once, in 1966. A total of five English club teams have won the UEFA Champions League.
context_section_description: The English national team suffered two shock defeats in the early 1950s: a 1–0 loss to the United States at the 1950 World Cup and a 6–3 defeat to Hungary at Wembley in 1953. However, Wolverhampton Wanderers defeated the Hungarian club Budapest Honvéd, a match which inspired the creation of the European Cup. Chelsea were persuaded against participating in the first season of the European Cup in 1955–56, but Manchester United ignored such advice and went on to reach the semi-final of the 1956–57 edition, losing to the eventual winners Real Madrid. In the following season's European Cup, Manchester United was involved in the Munich Air Disaster: this also affected the national team as three of the players who lost their lives – Roger Byrne, Tommy Taylor and Duncan Edwards – were established England internationals. Their manager Matt Busby was seriously injured but survived; he had already taken United to FA Cup glory in 1948 and another league title triumph in 1952 with an earlier side which featured the likes of Johnny Carey, Jack Rowley and Stan Pearson.
  Two English teams, a London XI and Birmingham City, both lost to Barcelona in the first two finals of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in 1958 and 1960.
  Wolverhampton Wanderers were another highly successful English club side during the postwar years. Under the management of Stan Cullis, they were league champions three times and FA Cup winners twice between 1949 and 1960. Although they failed to make a major impact in either of their European Cup campaigns, they did beat some of European football's most respected club sides in a series of friendlies at Molineux Stadium during the 1950s. Arsenal continued their run of success for several years after the resumption of league football, winning two league titles and an FA Cup between 1948 and 1953. Their North London rivals Tottenham Hotspur won the league title for the first time in 1951, and by the end of the decade were challenging for honors once again under new manager Bill Nicholson and captain Danny Blanchflower. Another London club, Chelsea, won the league title in 1955. Newcastle United were FA Cup winners three times in the 1950s, while Portsmouth won back-to-back league titles in the early postwar years.
  The Football League was reorganized for the 1958–59 season with Third Divisions North and South discontinued. The top half of each regional Third Division from the previous season formed a new Third Division, while the lower halves formed the new Fourth Division. Modernisation followed in the 1960s, with revolutions in the game such as the George Eastham case allowing players greater freedom of movement, and the abolition of the maximum wage in 1961.
  Tottenham Hotspur became the first club to win the Double in the 20th century in 1960–61, retained the FA Cup the following season, and then became the first English club to win a European trophy, the Cup Winners' Cup in 1962–63 when they beat Atlético Madrid 5–1 in the final. Manager Bill Nicholson then built another successful Tottenham side which lifted a further FA Cup in 1967.
  The most marked success of the era, however, was Alf Ramsey's England team, which won the 1966 FIFA World Cup on home soil after controversially beating West Germany 4–2 after extra time, the only time the national team has won the trophy.
  In the late 1960s English clubs dominated the last years of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, with wins for Leeds United, Newcastle United and Arsenal. Manchester United became the first English club to win the European Cup in 1967–68 when they beat Benfica 4–1 at Wembley in the final. Liverpool (four), Nottingham Forest (two), and Aston Villa (one) won the European Cup in a successful period between 1977 and 1984.
  The first half of the 1960s saw the promotion of two sides to the First Division who would achieve great success as this level for many years afterwards: Liverpool (in 1962) and Leeds United (in 1964). Liverpool, managed by Bill Shankly, won the league title in 1964, two seasons after promotion, and followed this up with their first-ever FA Cup triumph a 
caption: Memorial to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster at the stadium. The disaster resulted in a modernisation of English stadiums.
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