Manchester United History

Manchester United has a long history (about 129 years) with a great amount of various events. Among them the most vivid and essential are:

• 1878 - Manchester United Football Club was first formed as Newton Heath L&YR F.C. (Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway). It was the works team that played on a small field on North Road.
• 1892 - the club had entered the Football League and began to sever its links with the rail depot, becoming an independent company, appointing a club secretary and dropping the "L&YR" from their name to become simply Newton Heath F.C.
• 1893 - the team moved to Bank Street in the nearby town of Clayton.
• 1902 - the club had financial problems. Their debs were over £2500. Newton Heath F.C. was saved by a local brewery owner, John Henry Davies (the managing director of Manchester Breweries). He decided to invest in the club. This led to a change of the name. Among the suggested names were Manchester Central and Manchester Celtic, but they were rejected. Louis Rocca, a young immigrant from Italy, led attention to Manchester United. In such a way the name stuck and Manchester United officially came into existence on April/May 1902. Davies also decided it would be appropriate to change the club's colors, abandoning the green and gold halves of Newton Heath, and took red and white to be the colors of Manchester United.
• 28 September 1902 - Ernest Mangnall became a new manager of the club. He signed players such as Harry Moger, Dick Duckworth, John Picken, Charlie Roberts.
• 1905 - 1906 - was the greatest season in the early life of Manchester United. The club reached the quarter- finals of the FA Cup and finished as runners-up in the Second Division.
• 1907 - 1908 - Manchester United won the Football League Championship for the first time with a 2-1 victory over Sheffield United. The star of this match was Billy Meredith (nicknamed the Welsh Wizard) who set up countless goals.
• 1908 - as the champions, United played in the first ever Charity Shield. They defeated FA Cup winners QPR 4-0 thanks to a hat-trick from Sandy's namesake, Jimmy Turnbull and won the trophy.
• 1909 - Manchester United won the third trophy. It was the FA Cup. United beat Bristol City 1-0 in the final, thanks to Sandy Turnbull's goal.
• 19 February 1910 - Manchester United lost 4-3 to Liverpool.
• 1910 - 1911- the club won the First Division for the second time, beating Sunderland 5-1. They moved to their new place at Old Trafford. The stadium was successful in accommodating an 80,000 capacity crowd.
• 1911 - 1912 -this season was not only proved to be the last with Mangnall, but also the last time the club won the First Division for 41 years, the longest time they have gone without winning the league in their history.
• 1912 - 1913 - JJ Bentley became a new manager. Under his guidance the club claimed fourth place in the League.
• December, 1914 - there were some changes in management. For the first time the roles of secretary and team manager were separated. Bentley became full-time secretary and John Robson was appointed to look after and select the team, but the First World War put football firmly to the back of people's minds. The club went into a state of gradual decline.
• 30 August, 1919 - Manchester United returned to League football. The team had many new players. John Chapman became a new manager. He reverted to the dual role of secretary/manager last held by JJ Bentley.
• 1921 - 1922 - the club was relegated back down to Division Two, won only 8 of their 42 matches.
• 1924 - 1926 - they were promoted again. But soon were relegated. The Red Devils could reached only a ninth-place.
• 1926 - 1927 - Manchester United finished this season only on the 15th place.
• 1927 - 1928 - the club was continued to losing their stands and slid down to the 18th.
• 1928 - 1929 - fans saw the slight shift in the results. Manchester United was on the 12th place.
• 1930 - 1931 - United eventually lost 27 of their 42 league matches, conceding 115 goals.
• 1934 - 1935 - in the eight years leading up to World War II , the club became somewhat of a yo-yo club, reaching their all-time lowest position of 20th in Division Two. Manchester United finished this season in the 50th place.
• 1935 - 1936 - eventually the club claimed their first silverware of the decade. They beaten Bury with a 3-2 score at Gigg Lane.
• 1937 - 1938 - the yo-yoing continued as United were promoted again, as runners-up to Aston Villa. Walter Crickmer became a manager.
• 11 March 1941 - the Old Trafford stadium was bombed. The attack destroyed the main stand, offices, dressing rooms.
• 1945 - this year is connected with the name of Matt Busby who proved to be the most important figure in the history of Manchester United. He was a former Manchester City and Liverpool player. As a manager together with Jimmy Murphy he changed United into a powerful football club. Matt Busby also founded the "Famous Five" forwards when he brought together Jimmy Delaney, Stan Pearson, Jack Rowley, Charlie Mitten and Johnny Morris.
• 1946 - 1947 - due to the efforts of Matt Busby and his reorganization of the team Manchester United finished second to Liverpool in the first Football League campaign after the war.
• 1948 - the club won the FA Cup. It was 39 years to the day that United had previously won the Cup, in 1909 and also the club's first major honors since winning the League Championship in 1911.
• 1952 - as the result of the perfect managing and training the Red Devils won the League Championship for the first time since many long years.
• 1956 - the team won the league again. The average age of the players was only 22.Among the young stars or Busby Babes were: Roger Byrne , Bill Foulkes , Mark Jones and Dennis Viollet, Eddie Colman and Duncan Edwards who became the First Division's youngest-ever player at the age of 16 years and 185 days in April 1953. Edwards could play at any position on the field, and many who saw him play said that he was the greatest player ever.
• 1956 - 1957 - they won the league again and reached the FA Cup final.
• 1 February 1958 - the slashing match. The Reds beat the Gunners in a nine-goal thriller.
• 6 February 1958 - eight players of Manchester United died in airplane crash in Munich, Germany. Among them were: Byrne, Colman, Jones, Pegg, Taylor, Geoff Bent, Liam Whelan, Duncan Edwards.
• May 1958 - the club reached the FA Cup Final.
• 1958 - 1959 - became a runners-up in the League Championship. Matt Busby created another great team for another great decade. In such a way appeared new stars. They were George Best, Dennis Viollet, Nobby Stiles, Denis Law (he came via a record £115,000 transfer from Torino).
• 1962 - 1963 - the new team won the FA Cup. They beat Leicester 3-1. It was also a period of success of a new football star George Best, a young man from Belfast.
• 1965 and 1967 - United won twice the League Championship.
• 1968 - Manchester United won the European Cup. In the final they beat Eusébio 's SL Benfica 4-1. The Red Devils became the first English club to win the competition.
• 1969 - Wilf McGuinness became a new manager. Wilf wasn't allowed to struggle for too long. On Boxing Day 1970 he was relieved of his duties and Sir Matt was put back in temporary charge.
• June, 1971 - Frank O'Farrell was the next man to take charge.
• 16 December 1972 - the Red Devils were beaten by Crystal Palace. The slashing score was 5-0.
• 1972 - Tommy Docherty became a new chairman. Players like Lou Macari , Stewart Houston and Brian Greenhoff were brought in to replace the golden trio (Best, Law and Charlton), but none could live up to the stature of the three that came before.
• 1974 - 1975 - the renewed team won the Second Division Championship.
• 1976 - United reached the FA Cup final, losing to Southampton, but beating Liverpool 2-1 a year later.
• 1977 - Dave Sexton replaced Docherty as manager, who was discharged because of this lack of trophies on 30 April 1981.
• 1980 - 1981- the club won their last seven league games in a row.
• 1981 - Ron Atkinson became a new manager. He took Mick Brown as assistant manager and Eric Harrison as youth coach and immediately broke the British record transfer fee to sign Bryan Robson from his old club, West Brom for £1.5m and he spent around a third of that again to add another ex-Albion man, Remi Moses, to the United squad. The new team include such players as: Jesper Olsen , Paul McGrath, Gordon Strachan, Norman Whiteside and Mark Hughes.
• 1983, 1985 - due to the professional team the club won the FA Cup twice.
• 1985 - 1986 - Manchester United were overwhelming favorites to win the league after winning their first ten league games, opening a ten-point gap over their rivals as early as October. The team's form collapsed, however, and United finished the season in fourth place. Atkinson was sacked.
• November 1986 - After Ron Atkinson the club was guided by Alex Ferguson. He started his managing when the club was only on the 11th place. Fergie clearly had the talent for the job, but he also needed time to turn United round.
• 1987 - 1988 - United finished second to Liverpool by winning eight and drawing two of their last ten games.
• 1990 - Mark Robins goal gave United a narrow 1-0 win in the third round of the FA Cup over Nottingham Forest.
• 1990 - 1991 - the Red Devils beaten Barcelona and won the European Cup Winners' Cup.
• 1992 - 1993 - Manchester United finished this season for the first time since 1967.
• 1993 - 1994 - the team virtually picked itself en route to an historic League and FA Cup Double, with Cantona sporting the number seven shirt that had been Bryan Robson's property for so long. The number one, meanwhile, was undoubtedly Peter Schmeichel, arguably the best goalkeeper ever seen at Old Trafford.
• 1996 - 1997 - United won the league. Eric Cantona left the football at the age of 30.
• 1997 - 1998 - this season wasn't very successful for the club. They lost to Arsenal.
• 1998 - 1999 - the most successful season in English club football history as they became the first and only English team to win The Treble - winning the Premiership (beating Tottenham Hotspur 2-1), FA Cup (beating Newcastle United 2-0) and UEFA (beating Bayern Munich 2-1) Champions League in the same season. Manchester United also won the Intercontinental Cup after beating Palmeiras 1-0 in Tokyo. In such a way the Treble became a quadruple. As the result the biggest football club in the world become the best in the world.
• 2000, 2001 - United won twice the League Championship. The Red Devils became one of the 14 founder members of the G-14 group of leading European football clubs.
• 2001 - 2002 - Manchester United finished this season only in third place.
• 2004 - the Reds lost their title to Arsenal again, but won the FA Cup for a record eleventh time, beating Millwall 3-0 in the 2004 final at Cardiff's Millennium Stadium.
• 2004 - 2005 - United finished the season trophyless and in third place in the league.
• 2005 - 2006 - Manchesner United lost to Benfica (Portugal team), but won the League Cup beating Wigan Athletic in the final 4-0.
• 2006 - 2007 - the club played Marcello Lippi 's European XI at Old Trafford and won the game 4-3.
• 6 May 2007 - Manchesner United returned the Premier League title.