History of the England national football team History of the England national football team The history of the England national football team begins with the first ever international football match in 1870. They have won one World Cup, in 1966 on home soil, and qualified fourteen times for the tournament onwards from 1950. England staged Euro 1996 (European Championship). However, the team has never made it to the final of the competition; their best performances being a semi final in Euro 1968 and Euro 1996. England's first ever international representative matches were arranged by influential sports' administrator CW Alcock under the auspices of the Football Association. The
Cuthbert Ottaway King's Scholar) and at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he displayed a versatility as a sportsman matched only by his near-contemporary Alfred Lyttelton. Representing his school in the annual cricket match against Harrow, twice victor in the Public Schools' Rackets Doubles Championship, and winning Blues for representing his university at football (1874), cricket (1870–73), racquets (1870–73), athletics (1873) and real tennis (1870–72), Ottaway was – an Oxford newspaper remembered after his death – "a great cricketer... the best amateur racquet player of his time, a capital football player and a fair sprint runner. It has fallen to the lot of few