English soccer club Newcastle United is founded
Newcastle United Football Club is an English professional football club based in Newcastle upon Tyne, that plays in the Premier League – the top flight of English football. The club was founded in 1892 by the merger of Newcastle East End and Newcastle West End. The team plays its home matches at St James' Park in the centre of Newcastle. Following the Taylor Report's requirement that all Premier League clubs have all-seater stadiums, the ground was modified in the mid-1990s and currently has a capacity of 52,305.
The club has been a member of the Premier League for all but three years of the competition's history, spending 89 seasons in the top flight as of May 2021, and have never dropped below English football's second tier since joining the Football League in 1893. Newcastle have won four League titles, six FA Cups and a FA Charity Shield, as well as the 1968–69 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the 2006 UEFA Intertoto Cup, the ninth highest total of trophies won by an English club. The club's most successful period was between 1904 and 1910, when they won an FA Cup and three of their League titles. Their last major domestic trophy was in 1955 (though their last major trophy was in 1969) and more recently the club have been League or FA cup runner-ups on four occasions in the 1990s. Newcastle were relegated in 2009, and again in 2016. The club won promotion at the first time of asking each time, returning to the Premier League, as Championship winners, in 2010 and 2017.
Newcastle have a long-standing rivalry with nearby club Sunderland, with whom they have contested the Tyne–Wear derby since 1898. The club's traditional kit colours are black and white striped shirts, black shorts and black socks. Their crest has elements of the city coat of arms, which features two grey hippocamps. Before each home game, the team enters the field to "Local Hero", and "Blaydon Races" is also sung during games. In 2005, Goal! The Dream Begins, a rags-to-riches British sports drama, was released, with Newcastle United as the highlighted club throughout the plot, with many crediting the film with raising the club's overall popularity among players and fans alike.The club was owned by Mike Ashley from 2007 until 2021, who succeeded long-term chairman Sir John Hall. The club is the 17th-highest revenue producing club in the world in terms of annual revenue, generating €169.3 million in 2015. Newcastle's highest placing was in 1999, when they were the fifth-highest revenue producing football club in the world, and second in England only behind Manchester United. On 7 October 2021, the club was bought for £300 million by a consortium led by the Saudi Arabian government's sovereign wealth fund. The purchase made Newcastle the richest club in the world.