Leeds United Football Club Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road S ...

were founded in October 1919, taking the place in the

Midland League The Midland Football League is an English football league that was founded in 2014 by the merger of the former Midland Alliance and Midland Combination. The league has four divisions that sit at levels 9–12 of the football pyramid. History Th ...

vacated by Leeds City Reserves, and were elected to

The Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for the 1920–21 season. They won the

Second Division In sport, the Second Division, also called Division 2 or Division II is usually the second highest division of a league, and will often have promotion and relegation with divisions above and below. Following the rise of Premier League style compet ...

title four years later to gain

promotion Promotion may refer to: Marketing * Promotion (marketing), one of the four marketing mix elements, comprising any type of marketing communication used to inform or persuade target audiences of the relative merits of a product, service, brand or i ...

to the top tier of English football, but had to wait almost 50 years before winning any major

silverware Silverware may refer to: * Household silver including **Tableware **Cutlery **Candlesticks *The work of a silversmith * Silverware is also a slang term for a collection of trophies A trophy is a tangible, durable reminder of a specific achieveme ...

, with success in the

1968 Football League Cup final The 1968 Football League Cup Final took place on 2 March 1968 at Wembley Stadium. It was the eighth final and the second to be played at Wembley. It was contested between Arsenal and Leeds United. Leeds had been Inter-Cities Fairs Cup finalists ...

accompanied by success in Europe in the final of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. The following season brought league success when Leeds won the First Division championship. Their success continued into the 1970s with victory in the

1971 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final The 1971 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup Final was the final of the thirteenth and last Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. It was played on 28 May and 3 June 1971 between Juventus F.C., Juventus of Italy and Leeds United F.C., Leeds United of England. Leeds won the t ...

, the

1972 FA Cup final The 1972 FA Cup Final took place on 6 May 1972 at Wembley Stadium. It was the centenary final (although only the 91st final due to the world wars) and the 44th to be played at Wembley. It was contested between cup holders Arsenal, who had won th ...

, another league title in the 1973–74 season and runners-up in the

1975 European Cup final The 1975 European Cup Final was a football match between Bayern Munich of West Germany and Leeds United of Yorkshire, England, played on 28 May 1975 at the Parc des Princes in Paris. It was the final match of the 1974–75 season of Europe's prem ...

. Leeds won the Second Division title in the 1989–90 season and were promoted back to the First Division. A third league title in the 1991–92 season, a second FA Charity Shield in the

1992 FA Charity Shield The 1992 FA Charity Shield (also known as the Tennent's FA Charity Shield for sponsorship reasons) was the 70th Charity Shield, a football match contested by the winners of the previous season's Football League and FA Cup competitions. The match ...

and a semi-final appearance in the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

, preceded a period of turbulence which culminated in relegation to

League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

in the 2006–07 season. They dropped out of the top two tiers of English football for the first time in their history, in a season that saw them deducted ten points for going into

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

. In 2010, Leeds United were promoted back into the

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

. Ten years later, in 2020, the club were promoted back to the

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 Foo ...

after a 16-year absence. Leeds United AFC League Performance

Leeds United have won the League Championship three times, four

titles, the

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual knockout football competition in men's domestic English football. First played during the 1871–72 season, it is the oldest national football competi ...

once, the

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

once, the Charity Shield twice and the

Inter-Cities Fairs Cup The Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, sometimes referred to as the European Fairs Cup, Fairs Cities' Cup, or simply as the Fairs Cup, was a European Association football, football competition played between 1955 and 1971. It is often considered the predecess ...

twice. All these honours were won under the management of either Arthur Fairclough,

Don Revie Donald George Revie OBE (10 July 1927 – 26 May 1989) was an England international footballer and manager, best known for his successful spell with Leeds United from 1961 until 1974, which immediately preceded his appointment as England manage ...

Howard Wilkinson Howard Wilkinson (born 13 November 1943) is an English former footballer and manager. Despite having a low-profile playing career, Wilkinson embarked on a successful managerial career. He won the First Division championship in 1992 with Leeds ...

and

Marcelo Bielsa Marcelo Alberto Bielsa Caldera (, nicknamed ''El Loco Bielsa'' , meaning "The Crazy Bielsa"; born 21 July 1955) is an Argentine professional football manager who was most recently the head coach of Premier League club Leeds United. He is a forme ...

. The club have also been runners-up five times in the League Championship, three times in the FA Cup, once each in the League Cup, the Charity Shield, the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, the

Cup Winners' Cup The UEFA Cup Winners' Cup was a European football club competition contested annually by the winners of domestic cup competitions. The cup was, chronologically, the second seasonal inter-European club competition organised by UEFA. The tournam ...

and the

European Cup The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

, and lost the play-off to keep the Inter-City Fairs Cup trophy.

Seasons

Key

Key to league record: *Pld = Matches played *W = Matches won *D = Matches drawn *L = Matches lost *GF = Goals for *GA = Goals against *Pts = Points *Pos = Final position Key to divisions: *Prem =

*Champ =

EFL Championship The English Football League Championship (often referred to as the Championship for short or the Sky Bet Championship for sponsorship purposes) is the highest division of the English Football League (EFL) and second-highest overall in the E ...

*Div 1 =

Football League First Division The Football League First Division was a division of the Football League in England from 1888 until 2004. It was the top division in the English football league system from the season 1888–89 until 1991–92, a century in which the First ...

*Lge 1 =

EFL League One The English Football League One (often referred to as League One for short or Sky Bet League One for sponsorship purposes, and known as the Football League One from 2004 until 2016) is the second-highest division of the English Football Leag ...

*Div 2 =

Football League Second Division The Football League Second Division was the second level division in the English football league system between 1892 and 1992. Following the foundation of the FA Premier League, the Football League divisions were renumbered and the third ti ...

*ML =

*n/a = Not applicable Key to rounds: *DNE = Did not enter *PR = Preliminary round *R1 = Round 1 *R2 = Round 2 *R3 = Round 3 *R4 = Round 4 *R5 = Round 5 *R6 = Round 6 *Grp = Group stage *QF = Quarter-finals *NQF = Northern quarter-finals *SF = Semi-finals *NF = Northern final *RU = Runners-up *W = Winners Division shown in bold to indicate a change in division.
Top scorers shown in bold are

players Players may refer to: Art, entertainment, and media * ''Players'' (1979 film), a film starring Ali MacGraw * ''Players'' (2012 film), a Bollywood film * ''Players'' (Dicks novel), a novel by Terrance Dicks, based on the television series ''Doc ...

who were also top scorers in their division that season.

Notes

References

External links

* * * (Covers periods from 1919 to 1968 and 1999 to 2007.) {{featured list

Seasons A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and pola ...

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road S ...