First Incarnation
The first Combination was set up in 1888, the same year the Football League was founded. It consisted of 20 teams, although this proved too many teams for each one to play the other once, let alone twice. Instead each club was to play eight others home and away, making 16 games in total. However unlike the League the Combination was not centrally organised, but left to individual clubs; as a result confusion ensued, as it was not clear whether many matches between clubs were friendlies or Combination matches. Many fixtures were left unfulfilled, and the Combination was wound up in April 1889.
Participating teams included Newton Heath, Grimsby Town, Lincoln City, Burslem Port Vale, Crewe Alexandra, Bootle, Small Heath and Blackburn Olympic. Newton Heath, Grimsby, Crewe, Bootle and Small Heath went on to co-found the Football Alliance the following year.
Read more about this topic: The Combination
Famous quotes containing the word incarnation:
“Service ... is love in action, love “made flesh”; service is the body, the incarnation of love. Love is the impetus, service the act, and creativity the result with many by-products.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 3 (1962)
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