10 Biggest Football Clubs In Yorkshire
6. Hull City
Hull City took the football world by surprise when they stormed into the Premiership with a trademark strike from legendary local hero Dean Windass in 2007. Hull had never (never!) made it into the English top-flight until the perma-tanned Phil Brown took them up in 2008 with a playoff final win over Bristol City.
Since then, they’ve had three separate spells in the Premier League – none of them lasting more than two seasons. Hull City is one of the biggest football clubs in Yorkshire now and they are in the second division right now.
5. Huddersfield Town
Huddersfield Town was the first English team to win three successive league titles – a feat only achieved since by Arsenal, Liverpool and Manchester United. They achieved this feat under the guidance of their manager Herbert Chapman. The Terriers also scooped the FA Cup in the same era.
Nowadays “The Terriers”, playing in a traditional blue and white strip, enjoy great rivalries with nearby Leeds and Bradford City – not to mention any other Yorkshire sides they happen to come up against!
As the Yorkshire Club, Huddersfield has great community roots and has developed a reputation for having a strong Academy. Great players from the past have included Denis Law and England World Cup winner Ray Wilson.
4. Middlesbrough
Middlesbrough have got a good fanbase and a lot of nostalgia behind them. Members of Middlesbrough Cricket Club formed this football club at a meeting at the Albert Park Hotel in 1876. They were also one of the founding members of the Premier League in 1992. The club’s main rivals are Sunderland and Newcastle United. There is also a rivalry with fellow Yorkshire club Leeds United.
The club’s highest league finish to date was third in the 1913–14 season and they have only spent two seasons outside of the Football League’s top two divisions. The club came close to folding in 1986 after experiencing severe financial difficulties before the club was saved by a consortium led by then-board member and later chairman Steve Gibson. The club’s traditional kit is red with white detailing. The various crests throughout the club’s history, the most recent of which was adopted in May 2007, incorporate a lion rampant.
Arguably Middlesbrough’s most important success of recent times came in 2004 when a brilliant cup run was finished off by a remarkable win at Wembley to see Boro lift the League Cup for the first time.
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