William McGregor, unsurprisingly, a Scot from Perthshire, who ran a drapery shop near Villa Park, Birmingham, had never played the game, but he saw that football in its present form was "in a mess" and needed organising.
Although the game had been played and refined in schools, universities and in the forces, mainly in the officers' mess, international football was established, the FA Cup was 16 years old and professionalism had been legalised. But the only other fixtures were friendlies that were easily cancelled, leaving fans stranded, there was no income from crowds and no money to pay wages.
McGregor wrote to Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Preston NE, West Bromwich Albion and his own club Aston Villa. From an in initial meeting in March 1888, his second conference at the Royal Hotel, Manchester on April 17th, agreed "battle lines".
Twelve clubs from Lancashire and "The Midlands" were invited to form the new league. No southern club was invited because they were not professional. McGregor became the first "President".
The first set of fixtures took place on September 8th 1888 and the first league goal was scored for Preston by Jack Gordon, the club that towered over everyone else that season. By the end, Preston played 22, won 18, drew 4 and scored 74 conceding 15. Aston Villa came runners up 11 points behind and Stoke came last winning 4 games and drawing 4.
In 1892 the Second Division was added with 12 clubs and the First Division expanded to 16 clubs.
For those clubs not included in the new official set up in 1888, there was an issue and since there were only 22 "Saturdays" occupied by the new divisions, there were free Saturdays for clubs to benefit from financially lucrative friendlies and good fun, of course.
On April 27th 1888, The Football Combination was formed and was much more flexible than the official League. Clubs did not have to complete matches against all other Combination members. At the end of the first season, Newton Heath (fledgling Man U) came "top" with 14 games played and 1.571 pts/game (come across that before?).
Blackburn Olympic came bottom with 0.400 pts/game.
The clubs chose who they wanted to play against, arranged their own dates, aiming for a minimum of 8 fixtures. Olympic and Grimsby Town only played 5 games, although Grimsby did manage 4th place with 1.4 pts/game. The Combination collapsed in disarray on April 5th 1889.
20 clubs were initially involved in order:
Newton Heath, Northwich Victoria, Bootle, Grimsby Town. Small Heath, Notts Rangers,
Wallsall Town Swifts, Long Eaton Rangers, Birmingham St George, Darwen, Halliwell,
Crewe Alexandra, South Shore (Blackpool) in photo, Lincoln City, Derby Midland, Burslem Port Vale,
Derby Junction, Gainsborough Trinity, Leek and Blackburn Olympic.
In 1889-90 the Football Alliance was set up to take over from the "Combination". A meeting in Crewe, in April 1889 intended to form a second league. Although the meeting was timed for 4pm, a "break away group" meeting took place before hand and decided to form their own league based on the Football Combination model.
The 12 clubs self-selected were:
Birmingham St George, Bootle, Bootle, Burselm Port Vale, Crewe Alexandra, Darwen, Derby Midland, Newton Heath, Notts Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday. Small Heath Alliance, South Shore, Wallsall Town Swifts.
This was still unstable and four clubs pulled out due to financial and practical reasons: Burslem PV, South Shore, Derby Mid, Notts Rangers. They went to a smaller Midland League.
Sunderland and Sunderland Albion stepped in Nottingham Forest joined from the Midland League and then Grimsby Town. Sunderland withdrew by June and Long Eaton Rangers took their place.
The others from the Combination became founder members of the Midland League and the other clubs played friendlies and cup-ties.
Blackburn Olympic, the first Northern Club to win the FA Cup in 1883 (beating the Old Etonians 2-1 at the Oval), disbanded in the summer of 1889.
In the Alliance's three seasons, Sheffield Wednesday, then Stoke and finally Nottingham Forest were champions.
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