When reading into English football, you’ll be introduced to a whole host of clubs who are known outside of the English and British shores. Clubs from the northern, middle and southern parts of England are recognised as some of the biggest in the world. To the northern part of England, we have teams from Liverpool and Manchester. Towards the middle of the country, we have teams from the Midlands and Yorkshire with massive support and fanbases. London, too, houses many big clubs. But who is the most successful overall?

As of 2020, the most successful club in England is Liverpool Football Club. The Reds are the most successful club in England with a whopping 48 major honours to their name. Having recently added major tournaments like the FIFA Club World Club, UEFA Champions League, and English Premier League, the Reds have usurped their eternal rivals Manchester United as the most successful club on English soil.

Since being founded back in 1888, the Football League has seen many clubs come into existence and do well. None, though, quite match up to Liverpool. Despite not being the record holders for league titles (United hold that record, with 20), or FA Cups (Arsenal), the Reds do have a European record on these shores with six European Cups; nearly as many as the rest of England put together!

With fourteen international titles to United in second place with eight, the Reds easily have a handle over their illustrious rivals on European shores. And with just a single domestic title now separating the two teams, it’s clear that this rival could be set for some to-and-fro over the next years.

In fact, Liverpool come out on top in every metric apart from Premier League and FA Cup wins when it comes to United: United, though, do have an Intercontinental Cup and a Cup Winners’ Cup – two defunct trophies that the Anfield side now cannot win.

When watching a game of football, perhaps for the first time, one thing you might notice is that time is added on at the end of each half. At the end of the 45-minute half, a referee will add on a set amount of time to help make up for any time lost during the game. But why? And how is the time worked out by the referee?

Unlike many other sports that stop the clock during a stoppage in play, football does not take this route. Instead, the match clock continues at all times and time is simply added on at the end of try and make up for any lost time. However, the methods used to try and determine how much time should be added on is often subjective and controversial.

Many times, it’s easy to find disagreement for or against the stoppage time that has been included. The time will be added on across various ways, but typically the referee will look to try and keep track of any kind of stoppage in the game. This could include things such as:

• Injuries, when a player requires a significant amount of time to be treated for injury.
• Serious fouls, such as a player striking out off the ball or making an outside-the-rules tackle.
• Disputed play or goals, when a goal has to be checked over for a potential foul or mistake.
• Crowd-based stoppages, such as someone running on the pitch and/or illicit chanting.

These factors all make it hard for a crowd to accurately gauge how much time a referee will add on to any given game. Try and keep this in mind when watching football as many times the amount of added on time might not correlate with what you had expected.

Like many other parts of football rulings and regulations, it’s subjective!

For anyone who is new to the sport of football, by far and away one of the most confusing rules is the offside rule. Offside is an important part of defending in football, allowing you to force the opposition to give a foul to your team simply by running beyond your last defender. So, how does the actual rule work? In this guide, we’ll try and break down what the offside rule actually means.

So, typically the offside rule will be built around making sure that the team who is attacking cannot be beyond the last player in the opposition team. This means that you can’t simply stand behind the opposition defence, or ‘goaltend’. But what about the keeper?

Typically, the rule is that you will be judged on whether you are offside or not based on outfield player positions as they are 99% of the time in front of the goalkeeper. So, this is why the rule is written as the ‘second last opponent’ – you cannot be ahead of the goalkeeper regardless.

To be regarded as offside, any part of your head, body, or feet would need to be beyond the last opposition player. Hands and arms do not count as you cannot score with your hands or your arms. If you are level with the second-last opponent or the last two opponents, then you are considered onside.

However, it’s important to note three things here:

• You can only be ruled from offside in the opposition half; if the entire opposition team is in your half, then so long as you in your own half then you cannot be considered offside.
• It is not an offence to stand in an offside position. You can stand offside so long as you don’t get actively involved in the play.
• You can be in an offside position; so long as you don’t touch the ball or actively get in the way of an opponent, you will not be flagged for being offside.

Offside can be a very confusing rule, but so long as you remember that it comes down to the last opposition outfield player as opposed to the goalkeeper it should be easier to stay onside.