Football Clubs of Manchester

Manchester is one of the main football cities in the World. Greater Manchester has 4 enormous football clubs, including 2 premier league clubs Manchester United and Manchester City. Additionally, there Are two clubs located in Manchester that play lower English leagues: Wigan Athletic from the Championship and Bolton Wanderers in League One.

Premier League Clubs Manchester

At the moment you will find just two football clubs at Manchester that play at the highest level, Manchester United and Manchester City. There is very good competition between those clubs, the match between Manchester United and Manchester City is popularly named the Manchester Derby. Additionally, Manchester has two clubs which act on the 2nd level (the Championship), these are Bolton Wanderers and Wigan Athletic.

Manchester United

Manchester United was set in 1878. However, they originally were not called Manchester United, the clubs name was Newton Heath LYR FC. Only in 1902 was that the team called Manchester Untied with the nickname “The Red Devils”. Manchester United is now the most successful club in the history of English football. In national competitions, United have won a total of 20 league names, 12 FA Cups, 21 Community Shields and 5 League Cups. In addition, in Europe Manchester United had some successes over recent years. They won the Champions League twice, Europa League once, the UEFA super cup and lots of other European prizes.

The most successful season of the club was that the season of 1998/99. In that year Manchester United with best players such as Jaap Stam, Peter Schmeichel and David Beckham won the treble, the league, the FA Cup and the Champions League.

Since 1910, Old Trafford has been home to Manchester United. Old Trafford, also called “Theatre of Dreams”, will be the 2nd largest scene in the whole of England with a capacity of 76,000. The easiest way to get to Old Trafford is by Metrolink, bus or taxi. The purple metrolink line (Altrincham) runs regularly to Old Trafford, you have to get off at the “Old Trafford” stop. Also you can get on the 263 bus towards Altrincham. If you use this bus line you need to get off at Warwick Road, this stop is a few minutes walk from the arena.

Manchester City

Manchester City was set up just a little later than Manchester United, Manchester City was set up in 1880. The football club was first called St. Mark’s, in 1887 it was called Ardwick Association Football Club and in 1894 the club was eventually renamed Manchester City. The very first big prize that the club won was the FA Cup, that had been won at the 1903/04 season. The first time that the team had been very powerful came in the 60s, when Manchester City won the championship title, the FA Cup, the League Cup, the Super Cup and the European Cup II. Nevertheless, the team was not able to keep on these victories and Manchester City even relegated into the third branch of English Football leagues. At the beginning of 2000, Manchester City has been promoted to the Premier League again. A little later, in 2008, the team has been bought by the Abu Dhabi United Group for 210 million. With this takeover, plenty of money has been invested in the club, which makes it perhaps one of the richest clubs in the Premier League.

The stadium at which Manchester City plays its home matches is the Etihad Stadium. The stadium owes its name to its sponsorship deal with Etihad Airways. Manchester City moved to Etihad (initially City of Manchester Stadium) in 2003, before that the club played it’s games at Maine Road. The stadium is mainly accessible by public transport. You can travel to the arena with bus number 216. Also it’s linked to the metrolink with the blue metro line towards the Etihad Stadium. What’s more, it’s possible to walk out of the city centre to the stadium which takes approximately 25 minutes.

Wigan Athletic

Wigan Athletic is another most popular club in Manchester and was set up in 1932. The largest success of Wigan Athletic has been the FA Cup win in the 2012/13 season.

From the FA Cup final, Wigan Athletic beat Manchester City 1-0. The FA Cup win allowed Wigan to produce their UEFA Europa League debut in the 2013/14 season. Wigan played in the Premier league between 2005 and 2013 but were then relegated into the Championship. In the 2015/16 and 2017/18 seasons, the team competed in League One (third degree) since they transitioned from the Championship twice.

The stadium of Wigan Athletic is called the DW Stadium, the stadium is named after the biggest sponsor of Wigan DW Sports Fitness. Furthermore, it is also the place where soccer team Wigan Warriors plays its football matches. The stadium has a capacity of just over 25,000. The stadium is easily reachable by bus. There are many bus lines that run between the centre of Wigan and the DW Stadium. The buses that you need to take to reach the stadium are: 10, 5 and 3. You can also get a 20 minute train from Manchester City Centre.

Bolton Wanderers

Bolton Wanderers football club has been founded in 1874 under the name Christ Church soccer team. Three years after the establishment, the name of the team has been shifted to the current Bolton Wanderers. In 1888 the Soccer League was founded by various English clubs, one of them was Bolton Wanderers. The Football League was the highest division in English football before 1992, later 1992 it turned into the Premier League. The most successful length of the club happened in the 1920s, between 1922 and 1929 Bolton Wanderers won at least 3 FA Cups. Although the club played with for quite a while at the highest level, it managed to get a national title. In 2012, Bolton Wanderers relegated into the Championship, since that time they have now been unable to advertise into the Premier League.

The area where Bolton Wanderers plays its home games is the University of Bolton Stadium. For sponsorship reasons, the stadium has had different titles in preceding decades, it was called the Reebok Stadium between 1997 and 2004 and the Macron Stadium between 2014 and 2018. The stadium has approximately 29,000 seats. It is extremely quick to reach the Bolton Wanderers stadium from Bolton town centre and just a 15 minute train ride from Manchester city centre. By way of example, on competition days you can just take bus number 575 from the city centre.

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