Manchester United Football Club is an English professional football club who play at Old Trafford in Stretford, Greater Manchester. Having won a joint-record 18 league titles, four League Cups and a record 11 FA Cups, Manchester United is one of the most successful clubs in the history of English football. The club is one of the wealthiest and most widely supported football teams in the world.

Founded as Newton Heath LYR F.C. in 1878, the club joined The Football League in 1892 and has played in the top division of English football since 1938, with the exception of the 1974–75 season. The appointment of Matt Busby in 1945 led to league and cup victories in the 1950s, the youthful team nicknamed the Busby Babes. Their reign was tragically cut short in the 1958 Munich air disaster in which eight players lost their lives. Busby survived to rebuild the team, which saw FA cup success in 1963, and league championships in 1965 and in 1967. United were the first English club to win the European Cup in 1968, winning it again as part of the Treble in 1999, and adding a third Champions League title in 2008.

Alex Ferguson has been manager since 6 November 1986 and is the most successful manager in the club's history, having won 26 major honours. Average attendances at Old Trafford have been higher than at any other English club ground for all but six seasons since 1964–65.[6] After being floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1991, the club was purchased by the Glazer family in May 2005 in a deal valuing the club at almost £800 million.

Early years (1878–1945)

Manchester United was formed in 1878 as Newton Heath LYR Football Club by the Carriage and Wagon department of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway depot at Newton Heath. The team initially played games against other departments and rail companies, but in 1888 became a founding member of The Combination, a regional football league. However, following the league's dissolution after just one season, Newton Heath joined the newly formed Football Alliance, which ran for three seasons before being merged with the Football League. This resulted in Newton Heath starting the 1892-93 season in the First Division, at which time they became independent of the rail company and dropped the "LYR" from their name. After just two seasons, the club was relegated to the Second Division.
In January 1902, with debts of £2,670 – equivalent to £210,000 in 2010 – the club was served with a winding-up order. Captain Harry Stafford found four local businessmen, including John Henry Davies (who became club president), each willing to invest £500 in return for a direct interest in running the club and who subsequently changed the name; on 26 April 1902, Manchester United was officially born. Under Ernest Magnall, who assumed managerial duties in 1903, the club finished as Second Division runners-up in 1905–06 and secured promotion to the First Division, which they won in 1908 – their first league title. They began the following season with victory in the first ever Charity Shield[13] and ended it with the club's first FA Cup title. Manchester United won the First Division for the second time in the 1910–11 season; at the end of the following season Magnall left the club to join Manchester City.

In 1922, just three years after the resumption of football following the First World War, the club was relegated to the Second Division, where it remained until regaining promotion in 1925. Relegated again in 1931, Manchester United became a yo-yo club, achieving their all-time lowest position of 20th-place in the Second Division in 1934. Following the death of the clubs principle benefactor, J.H. Davies, in October 1927, the club's finances deteriorated to the extent that Manchester United would likely have gone bankrupt had it not been for James Gibson, who, in December 1931, invested £2000 and assumed control of the club.[14] In the 1938–39 season, the last year of football before the Second World War, the club finished 14th in the First Division.