Founded today · By you · Zero boring bits
⚽ For Saransh — founder, chairman, striker ⚽
Arsenal was started by weapon-makers. Everton by a church. Manchester United by railway workers. Every giant club was once just friends with a ball — so today, YOU found a club: name it, crest it, dress it, house it, sing for it.
Where do clubs come from? Not from billionaires. From workmates, classmates and neighbours — people exactly like you.
Fifteen workers at the Royal Arsenal weapons factory in Woolwich started a team called Dial Square — named after the sundial over their factory door. They became Arsenal, kept a cannon on the crest, and are called the Gunners to this day.
Workers at the Thames Ironworks shipyard formed a team after work. The crossed hammers on West Ham's crest aren't war hammers — they're rivet hammers, the tools that built ships. Nickname: the Hammers. Obviously.
Everton began at St Domingo's church in the late 1870s. Southampton started at St Mary's church — they're STILL called the Saints and still play at St Mary's Stadium. Manchester City grew from a church team too. Sunday football, quite literally.
Carriage-and-wagon workers at a railway depot formed "Newton Heath", playing in railway green-and-gold. In 1902 they picked a bigger name: Manchester United. From fixing train wagons to the most famous club name on Earth.
Your city's club didn't exist until 2013 — younger than some of your cousins. In their very first season they won the I-League, the first Indian club ever to win it at the first attempt. New clubs can rise FAST. Remember that today, founder.
So the recipe is: some friends + a ball + a name. You have all three. Chapter 2 starts the paperwork.
Club names are built from parts — and every part secretly MEANS something.
United
Teams that joined together — or a club for the WHOLE town, united.
Wanderers / Rovers
Clubs with no home ground, wandering from pitch to pitch! The original Wanderers won the very first FA Cup in 1872 — homeless and champions.
City
"We represent the whole city." Big claim. Big name.
Athletic
Clubs that started as sports clubs doing everything — running, gymnastics — before football took over.
Albion
An ancient poetic name for Britain, from the white cliffs. Very fancy.
FC
Football Club. Simple, classic, cannot go wrong.
Juventus wore pink shirts that kept fading in the wash — so in 1903 an English player got his friend in Nottingham to ship over black-and-white striped shirts. That's why Juventus look like zebras: laundry problems. And Brighton became the Seagulls because when rival Crystal Palace fans chanted "EAGLES!", Brighton fans shouted back "SEAGULLS!" — and it stuck forever.
Build your club's name — then say it like a stadium announcer. If it sounds good shouted, it's good.
Founder
The person who starts a club. Every crest, every chant, every trophy traces back to one. Today: you.
A crest is your club's story squeezed into one badge. Every symbol on a real crest is there for a reason.
Liverpool's bird is the liver bird, the magical bird of the city — holding seaweed in its beak as a pun on "Liver-pool". Barcelona's crest (chosen in a competition in 1910!) carries the cross of Sant Jordi and the stripes of the Catalan flag — the club wears its homeland. Arsenal's cannon came from Woolwich's own coat of arms.
In 1930, East Bengal were denied promotion — so thousands of fans marched with flaming torches in protest. The torch became the crest, and fans are called the Mashal Bahini: the Torchbearers. Mohun Bagan's badge is a sailing boat for Bengal's great rivers — their fans are the Mariners. Protest and pride, on two badges.
Shield, split, symbol, colours, initials. Forge until it feels like YOURS, then copy it into the workbook.
Crest
The badge over a footballer's heart. Players kiss it after big goals. Design yours like it will be kissed.
The greatest kit in football exists because a teenager won a newspaper contest.
Brazil used to play in WHITE. After losing the 1950 World Cup final at home — the Maracanazo, from Book 5 — the white shirt was blamed as unlucky, and a newspaper ran a contest for a new design using the flag's colours. The winner, from about 300 entries, was Aldyr Schlee, aged 19. His yellow-and-green shirt debuted in 1954 and became the most famous kit on Earth. The twist? Schlee lived on the Uruguay border… and secretly supported Uruguay his whole life.
The two teams must never look alike — that's an actual Law of the Game — and when colours clash, the away team changes. Get it wrong and disaster: in 1996 Manchester United wore a grey kit and were losing 3–0 at half-time; their manager made them change shirts mid-match because the players said they couldn't see each other. Goalkeepers must wear their own colours too (they're the only ones allowed to use hands, so the referee has to spot them instantly) — and referees wore black for a century so nobody could ever be confused with them.
Pattern, colours, shorts, socks — then hit the Clash Check to see if the referee would let you play today's rival.
Home kit no. 10
A club needs a home and an anthem. Both have better stories than you'd guess.
The oldest major stadium still hosting professional football is Bramall Lane in Sheffield — open since 1855, before cars, light bulbs or the rules of football itself were even agreed. And the biggest club stadium? Barcelona's Camp Nou is being rebuilt right now — when it's finished it will again be Europe's giant, at around 105,000 seats. Your stadium needs a name: [Your place] + Park, Arena, Lane or Gardens. Choose like it'll stand for 170 years.
Liverpool's famous anthem "You'll Never Walk Alone" wasn't written for football at all — it's from a 1945 Broadway musical! A Liverpool band's version hit number one in 1963, the crowd started singing it, and it never stopped. West Ham's fans sing "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" — because of a schoolboy nicknamed Bubbles who looked like a boy in a famous soap advert painting — and they blow real bubbles in the stands to this day. Anthems aren't chosen by clubs. They're chosen by crowds.
Chant recipe (workbook page 6): take a tune everyone knows, put your club's name in it, keep it under ten words, and make the last word easy to SHOUT. That's genuinely how most football songs are born.
Anthem
The one song the whole stadium sings together before kick-off. Goosebumps, guaranteed — even for the away fans.
Shirt numbers are younger than the oldest stadiums — and they used to be a secret code.
Numbered shirts were first tried in England in 1928 and only became compulsory in 1939. And numbers meant JOBS: 1 was always the goalkeeper, 2 and 3 the full-backs, 9 the centre-forward, 11 the left winger. That's why strikers still fight over the number 9 shirt and playmakers over 10 — the code lives on, a century later.
You know the roles from Book 3: a keeper who stops everything, defenders like bodyguards, a midfield brain, speed on the wings, a finisher. Workbook page 7 has your team sheet — eleven names, eleven numbers, one captain's armband. Family members ARE allowed. Grandparents make excellent defensive midfielders.
Founder's privilege: you pick your own number first. (The rules of this book state the founder plays every position they feel like.)
One last thing every club needs: a rival. Trophies are shinier when someone else wanted them.
Every great club has a great enemy. Roll yours — then never, ever lose to them.
India hosts Asia's oldest football tournament — the Durand Cup, played since 1888, older than almost every trophy in world football. It still kicks off every Indian season. Somewhere out there is a trophy with room for one more name on it. Found the club, do the work, and who knows.
📄 Now make it official: print the Club Founder's Workbook — crest page, kit templates, stadium page, chant lines, team sheet and your Founder's Certificate. Fill it in pencil, frame the certificate, run the club forever.
Ten questions before the league approves your club. Founders only.