A history of the English Premier League

The sport of association football is widely known as 'the beautiful game'. The idea of football as 'the people's game' comes very much from the popular understanding of the sport's British origins, subsequent to the game's codification and development into competitions in the latter part of the 1800s, whereby football clubs are seen to be representative of particular localities. When Leicester City, unexpectedly and against considerable odds, won the 2015/2016 English Premier League, the victory was heralded as a triumph of the city of Leicester and, therefore, for the people of Leicester. The modern Premier League is the elite division of English football, the pinnacle of five national tiers comprising 116 clubs, underpinned by an extensive network of regional leagues. Traditionally, the practice of attending football matches in England was often engaged in by working-class males, and up until the late 1950s attendance was primarily confined to relatively localised support.