Manchester United F.C.

Manchester United Football Club is a professional football club based in Old Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, that competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. Founded as Newton Heath LYR Football Club in 1878, the club changed its name to Manchester United in 1902 and moved to Old Trafford in 1910.

Manchester United have won 20 league titles, the most of any English club, 11 FA Cups, four League Cups and a record 20 FA Community Shields. The club has also won three European Cups, one UEFA Cup Winners' Cup, one UEFA Super Cup, one Intercontinental Cup and one FIFA Club World Cup. In 1998–99, the club became the first in the history of English football to achieve the treble of the Premier League, the FA Cup and the UEFA Champions League.

The 1958 Munich air disaster claimed the lives of eight players. In 1968, under the management of Matt Busby, Manchester United became the first English football club to win the European Cup. Alex Ferguson won 38 trophies, including 13 Premier League titles, 5 FA Cups and 2 UEFA Champions Leagues, between 1986 and 2013, when he announced his retirement. Louis van Gaal is the club's current manager after Ferguson's successor David Moyes was sacked after only 10 months in charge.

Liverpool

Liverpool (/ˈlɪvərpuːl/) is a city in Merseyside, England. A borough from 1207 and a city from 1880, in 2014 the city local government district had a population of 470,537 and the Liverpool/Birkenhead metropolitan area had a population of 2,241,000.

Liverpool is in the south west of the historic county of Lancashire in North West England, on the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. The town historically lay within the ancient Lancashire division of West Derby known as a "hundred".

The urbanisation and expansion of the city were largely brought about by its advantageous location during the industrial revolution status that led to its growth as a major port, which included its participation in the Atlantic slave trade. Liverpool was the port of registry of the ocean liner RMS Titanic, and many other Cunard and White Star ocean liners such as the RMS Lusitania, Queen Mary, and Olympic. Liverpool's status as a port city has contributed to its diverse population, which, historically, was drawn from a wide range of peoples, cultures, and religions, particularly those from Ireland. The city is also home to the oldest Black African community in the country and the oldest Chinese community in Europe.

Manchester

Coordinates: 53°28′N 2°14′W / 53.467°N 2.233°W / 53.467; -2.233

Manchester (/ˈmæntʃɪstər/) is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England, with a population of 514,417 as of 2013. It lies within the United Kingdom's second-most populous urban area, with a population of 2.55 million. Manchester is fringed by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east and an arc of towns with which it forms a continuous conurbation. The local authority is Manchester City Council.

The recorded history of Manchester began with the civilian settlement associated with the Roman fort of Mamucium or Mancunium, which was established in about 79 AD on a sandstone bluff near the confluence of the rivers Medlock and Irwell. It was historically a part of Lancashire, although areas of Cheshire south of the River Mersey were incorporated during the 20th century. Throughout the Middle Ages Manchester remained a manorial township but began to expand "at an astonishing rate" around the turn of the 19th century. Manchester's unplanned urbanisation was brought on by a boom in textile manufacture during the Industrial Revolution, and resulted in it becoming the world's first industrialised city.

Liverpool and Manchester Railway

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was a railway opened on 15 September 1830 between the Lancashire towns of Liverpool and Manchester in the United Kingdom. It was the first railway to rely exclusively on steam power, with no horse-drawn traffic permitted at any time; the first to be entirely double track throughout its length; the first to have a signalling system; the first to be fully timetabled; the first to be powered entirely by its own motive power; and the first to carry mail.John B. Jervis of the Delaware and Hudson Railway some years later wrote: "It must be regarded ... as opening the epoch of railways which has revolutionised the social and commercial intercourse of the civilized world".

Trains were hauled by company steam locomotives between the two towns, though private wagons and carriages were allowed. Cable haulage of freight trains was down the steeply-graded 1.26-mile Wapping Tunnel to Liverpool Docks from Edge Hill junction. The railway was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials, finished goods and passengers between the Port of Liverpool and mills in Manchester and surrounding towns.

Manchester City F.C.

Manchester City Football Club is a football club in Manchester, England. Founded in 1880 as St. Mark's (West Gorton), they became Ardwick Association Football Club in 1887 and Manchester City in 1894. The club moved to the City of Manchester Stadium in 2003, having played at Maine Road since 1923.

The club's most successful period was in the late 1960s and early 1970s when they won the League Championship, FA Cup, League Cup and European Cup Winners' Cup under the management team of Joe Mercer and Malcolm Allison. After losing the 1981 FA Cup Final, the club went through a period of decline, culminating in relegation to the third tier of English football for the only time in their history in 1998.

Having regained Premier League status, the club was purchased in 2008 by Abu Dhabi United Group and has become one of the wealthiest in the world. In 2011, Manchester City qualified for the UEFA Champions League and won the FA Cup. The following year, they won the Premier League, their first league title for 44 years. In 2014, they won the League Cup and a second Premier League title.