The Football League 100 Legends is a list of 100 great

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

players who played part or all of their professional career in English

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional association football, football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in Association football around the wor ...

and

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

football. The players were selected in 1998 by a panel of journalists, including veteran reporter Bryon Butler, and the list was intended to reflect the League's history by including players from throughout the preceding 99 seasons. The Football League also announced plans for a gala dinner later in the season at which surviving legends would receive a specially commissioned award. The list includes 34 players who began their playing careers before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

, 37 who began their careers between the end of the war and 1980, and 29 whose professional careers began after that date. At the time of the list's publication, six of the legends were still active, all playing in the

. The last of the players to play professionally was

Ryan Giggs Ryan Joseph Giggs (né Wilson; 29 November 1973) is a Welsh football coach and former player. Regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Giggs played his entire professional career for Manchester United and briefly served as ...

, who retired at the end of the 2013–14 season. All 100 of the legends played in The Football League with the exception of

Dennis Bergkamp Dennis Nicolaas Maria Bergkamp (; born 10 May 1969) is a Dutch professional football coach and former player. Originally a wide midfielder, Bergkamp was moved to main striker and then to second striker, where he remained throughout his playin ...

, who did not begin playing in England until after the Premier League replaced the Football League as the highest level of the

English football league system The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isl ...

in 1992. At the time of its announcement, the Football League chief executive

Richard Scudamore Richard Craig Scudamore CBE (born 11 August 1959) is an English sports executive. He was the Executive Chairman of the English Premier League from June 2014 until his retirement in November 2018. He had previously served as chief executive sinc ...

stated that the list was "almost impossible to better"; however, contributors to the

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broadc ...

website thought differently, providing many alternative suggestions.

Legends

References

{{English football awards English football trophies and awards

Legends A legend is a historical narrative, a symbolic representation of folk belief. Legend(s) or The Legend(s) may also refer to: Narrative * Urban legend, a widely repeated story of dubious truth * A fictitious identity used in espionage Books, co ...

Lists of association football players