The Shaggy Haired One

Manchested United: A Brief History

Manchester United Football Club is an English football club, based at Old Trafford Football Ground located just outside the city boundaries of Manchester , Lancashire . The club is one of the most successful clubs in England, having won the FA Premier League / Football League fifteen times, FA Cup eleven times and the European Cup twice. The club has had the highest average attendance in English football for the majority of the past fifty seasons.

The club was formed as Newton Heath (L&YR) F.C. in 1878 as the works team of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath . After nearing bankruptcy in 1902 , the club was taken over by J.H. Davies who changed its name to Manchester United . United appointed Sir Matt Busby as manager after the Second World War , and his then-unheard-of policy of producing most of the players through the club's youth team brought great success, with the club winning the Football League in 1956 and 1957 . This success was halted by the Munich air disaster of 1958 , in which eight of the club's players died. It was thought that the club might fold, but instead went on to win the football league in 1965 and 1967 , and the European Cup in 1968.

The club did not see success again until the 1990s and early 2000s, when Alex Ferguson guided it to eight league championships in eleven years, most recently in the 2002-3 season, however. In 1999 , Manchester United became the only team to win the UEFA Champions League , FA Premier League and the FA Cup in the same season. The club had been run as a Public Limited Company since 1991 , and an attempted takeover by Rupert Murdoch had been blocked by the British Government in 1999, but in 2005 Malcolm Glazer completed a hostile takeover of the club.