The Football League was founded in 1888 by Aston Villa director William McGregor, originally with twelve member clubs.

[citation needed] As more and more clubs became professional the ad-hoc fixture list of FA Cup, inter-county, and ordinary matches was seen by many as an unreliable stream of revenue, and ways were considered of ensuring a consistent income.

[8][9] A Scottish director of Birmingham-based Aston Villa, William McGregor, was the first to set out to bring some order to a chaotic world where clubs arranged their own fixtures, along with various cup competitions.

The first season of the Football League began a few months later on 8 September with twelve member clubs from the Midlands and north of England: Accrington, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Bolton Wanderers, Burnley, Derby County, Everton, Notts County, Preston North End, Stoke (renamed Stoke City in 1926),[13] West Bromwich Albion and Wolverhampton Wanderers.

Teams finishing at the bottom of the table were required to reapply for their position in the league for the following year in a process called "re-election".

To accommodate potential difficulties in this arrangement, clubs in the Midlands such as Mansfield Town or Walsall would sometimes be moved from one-Third Division to the other.

In the 1938–39 season Everton won the title for the fifth time but suffered the same fate as in 1915, being champions when football was suspended due to the World War.

Post-Second World War changes in league football included the use of white balls in 1951 and the first floodlight game (played between Portsmouth and Newcastle United) in 1956, opening up the possibility of midweek evening matches.

The League Cup was held for the first time in 1960–61 to provide clubs with a new source of income with Aston Villa winning that inaugural year.

The first ever League game to be held on a Sunday took place on 20 January 1974 (11:30 kick-off) and was played between Second Division rivals Millwall and Fulham at The Den.

Another important change was made at the start of the 1981–82 season when it was decided to award three points for a win instead of two, a further effort to increase attacking football.

This did no favours for the financial position and league standing of numerous clubs, and several – including Wolverhampton Wanderers, Swansea City and Middlesbrough – were almost forced out of business as a result.

The fortunes of the First Division clubs suffered a fresh blow in 1985 when all English clubs were banned from European competitions as a result of the Heysel disaster, where crowd trouble involving Liverpool fans at the European Cup final in Belgium resulted in 39 spectator deaths during a crush in a Juventus fan section.

The loss of life occurred when a surge in the crowd (moving away from clashes between rival supporters) caused a wall to collapse.

Inadequate segregation, stewarding and policing as well the generally poor condition of the ageing stadium were attributed as contributory factors.

1986–87 was the first season of the decade where Football League attendances increased, helped by improved economic conditions and falling unemployment nationally.

Emblematic of the confusion that was beginning to envelop the game, the number of clubs at the top of the league would return to 22 for the 1991–92 season, which increased competitiveness in the 1990–91 season as four teams would be promoted from the Second and Third Divisions instead of the normal three (with the seventh-place being the minimum position for the playoffs), while in the Fourth Division an unprecedented five promotion places were up for grabs, with the eighth-place being high enough for the playoffs.

However, the economy was now in another recession and added to that the clubs in the top two English divisions were faced with the requirement of having all-seater stadiums by 1994–95 to comply with the Taylor Report that followed the death of 97 Liverpool fans as a result of the Hillsborough disaster in April 1989.

The increasing influence of money in English football was evident with such events as the first £1m transfer in the game, that of Trevor Francis from Birmingham City to Nottingham Forest in February 1979.

The first £3 million player was Alan Shearer, who moved from Southampton to Blackburn Rovers in July 1992, the summer before the first Premier League season.

The Founder Members Agreement, signed on 17 July 1991 by the game's top-flight clubs, established the basic principles for setting up the FA Premier League.

However, this number would soon drop to 70 due to the closure of Maidstone United at the beginning of the 1992–93 season, and the Football League abandoned its expansion plan.

The widening gulf between the top two divisions of English football can largely be put down to the increased wealth of the Premier League clubs, and the wealth gained by these clubs – combined with parachute payments following relegation – has also made it easier for many of them to quickly win promotion back to the top flight.

In spite of the economic prosperity between 1992 and 2004, many Football League clubs did run into financial problems during this time, although none of them were forced out of business.

[22] Just after the end of the 2001–02 season, South London based Wimbledon were given permission to move to Milton Keynes, some 70 miles from their traditional home.

[25] The plan was criticised by the Premier League leadership and the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.

However, there were some promising signs for the future, as the League planned to announce new initiatives beginning with the 2004–05 season, coinciding with the start of a new sponsorship agreement with Coca-Cola.

In 1992 the threat was realised as the First Division clubs left to establish the FA Premier League and signed a contract for exclusive live coverage of their games with Sky TV.

Sky will provide the majority of the coverage and the BBC broadcast 10 exclusively live matches from the Championship per season and the semi-finals and finals of the League Cup.

Mark Clemmit continued to host the show as TradePoint came on board in the 2013–14 season to be the title sponsor of the newly re-branded 'Football League Radio'.