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Home > British Home Championship

1 Overview

By the early 1880s, the development of football in the United Kingdom was gathering pace and the four national football teams of the UK were playing regular friendlies against each other, with nearly every team playing all the others annually. At the time, the football associations of each Home Nation ( The Football AssociationThe Football Association The FA is the governing body of football in England. The FA was established in 1863 and is the oldest football association in the world. It was instrumental in formulating the rules of the modern game and has a special place in th (England), the Scottish Football AssociationThe Scottish Football Association SFA was formed in 1873 making it the second oldest national football association in the world (after The [English] Football Association). It is the governing body for the sport of football in Scotland being responsible fo, the Football Association of WalesThe Football Association of Wales is the governing body of football in Wales, being a member of both FIFA and UEFA. Established in 1876, it is the third-oldest association in the world, and is one of the five associations (with the English Football Associ and the Irish Football AssociationThe Irish Football Association IFA is the organising body for the sport of football (soccer) in Northern Ireland. It should not be confused with the Football Association of Ireland (FAI), which is the organising body in the Republic of Ireland. The IFA wa) had slightly different rules for football, and when matches were played the rules of whoever was the home team were used. While this solution was workable, it was hardly practical. To remedy this, the four associations met in ManchesterThis article is about the city in England. For alternative meanings, see Manchester (disambiguation). Manchester is a city in North West England, which in 2002 had a population of approximately 422,302. The city is situated in the centre of the large metr on December 6December 6 is the 340th day (341st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. There are 25 days remaining. Events: 1534 Spanish found Quito, Ecuador 1768 First edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica is published 1790 United States Congress movth 1882Events February 2 The Knights of Columbus are formed in New Haven, Connecticut February 7 In Mississippi City the last heavyweight boxing championship bareknuckle fight takes place. March 2 Robert Maclean fails to assassinate Queen Victoria at Windsor Mar and agreed on one uniform set of worldwide rules. They also established the International Football Association BoardThe International Football Association Board (IFAB is the body that determines the Laws of the Game of association football (soccer). The board was formed in 1882 after a meeting in Manchester of The Football Association (England), the Scottish Football A (IFAB) to approve changes to the rules (a task that they still perform to this day).

The new rules meant that formal international competitions could now easily be devised. Thus, at the same meeting, the associations formalised the annual friendlies and the British Home Championship - the world's first international football competition - was born.

The Championship was held every football season, starting with the 1883- 1884 season (the first ever match seeing eventual winners Scotland beat Ireland 5-0 away on January 24th 1884). The dates of the fixtures varied, but they tended to bunch towards the end of the season (sometimes the entire competition was held in a few days at the end of the season). Initially the winner of the competition was seen as the best team in the world, though as football developed globally this tag was dropped. The rise of other international competitions, especially the World Cup and European Championships, meant that the British Home Championship lost a lot of its prestige as the years went on.

However, the new international tournaments meant that the Championship took on added importance in certain years. The 1949- 1950 and 1953- 1954 Championships doubled up as qualifying groups for the 1950 and 1954 World Cups respectively and the results of the 1966- 1967 and 1967- 1968 Championships were used to determine who went forward to the second qualifying round of Euro '68.

The British Home Championship was discontinued after the 1983- 1984 competition. There were a number of reasons for the demise, including the tournament being overshadowed by the World Cup and European Championships, falling attendances at all but the England v Scotland games, fixture congestion, the rise of hooliganism to epidemic levels, the Troubles in Northern Ireland (civil unrest led to the 1981- 1982 competition being abandoned) and England and Scotland's desire to play against 'stronger' teams (the English and then Scottish FAs initiated the end of the competition in 1983 by announcing they would not enter after the 1983-1984 Championship). Ironically, the 'weaker' teams that England and Scotland wanted to stop playing excelled in the final Championship: Northern Ireland won it and Wales finished second. The British Home Championship trophy remains at the Irish Football Association's headquarters in Belfast.

The Championship was replaced by the smaller Rous Cup, which involved just England, Scotland and, in later years, an invited guest team from South America. That competition, however, ended after just five years.

In recent years, there have been many proposals to resurrect the British Home Championship, with advocates pointing to rising attendances and a significant downturn in football-related violence. It has been suggested that a reborn Championship could replace the international friendlies played by the UK teams between competitive fixtures, which some view as pointless. Many see the qualifying competition for the World Cup 2006 (in which England, Wales and Northern Ireland have been drawn in the same group) as an important test bed to the viability of restarting the competition.

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