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 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 ...

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 Foo ...

football. The players were selected in 1998 by a panel of journalists, including veteran reporter

Bryon Butler Ewart Bryon Butler (5 June 1934 – 26 April 2001) was an English writer and broadcaster, best known as the BBC's football correspondent from 1968 to 1991. He was born in Taunton, Somerset and educated at Taunton School. After working for a ...

, 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 opposin ...

, 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 association football, football coach and former player. Regarded as one of the greatest players of his generation, Giggs played his List of one-club men in association football, entir ...

, 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, 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 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 broadca ...

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