Bristol City F.C.

Bristol City Football Club is a professional football club based in Bristol, England. They play in the Championship, the second tier of English football. Founded in 1894, they have played their home games at Ashton Gate since 1904. The club's highest ever league finish was second in the top flight in 1906-07. They were FA Cup runners-up in 1909, and won the Welsh Cup in 1934 despite being an English team. The club have also won the second tier title once, the third tier title four times, the Anglo-Scottish Cup once, and the Football League Trophy a record three times. The club's home co-lours are red and white, and their nickname is The Robins-a robin featured on the club's badge from 1976 to 1994 and from 2019 on-wards. Their main rivals are Bristol Rovers, with whom they contest the Bristol derby, and Cardiff City, with whom they contest the Severnside derby. The club was founded in 1894 as Bristol South End and changed their name to Bristol City on adopting professionalism three years later when they were admitted into the Southern League. Finishing as runners-up in three of the first four seasons, in 1900 the club amalgamated with local Southern League rivals Bedminster F.C., who had been founded as Southville in 1887. City joined the Football League in 1901 when they became only the third club south of Birmingham (following in the footsteps of Woolwich Arsenal and Luton Town) to perform in the competition. Their first game in the Football League was on 7 September 1901 at Bloomfield Road, when Blackpool were beaten 2-0. Winning the Second Division Championship with a record number of points when they became the first club in Football League history to win 30 league games in a season (out of 38 played) as well as equal-ling Manchester United's achievement of the previous season in winning 14 consecutive games (a record until 2018, also accomplished by Preston North End in 1950-51). Nicknamed the Bristol Babe at this time, they finished as runners-up in their inaugural First Division campaign (1906-07) as the only southern club to finish in the top two prior to World War I. Three years later they won through to their only FA Cup Final, though they were somewhat fortunate that a last-gasp spot-kick saved them from defeat in the semi-final versus Derby County at Stamford Bridge. Unfortunately, there was no such similar award to help them in the Final at the Crystal Palace (now the National Sports Centre) as Manchester United took the hon-ours 1-0. After a five-season stay in the top flight, despite winning 1-0 at Newcastle at the start of the 1910-11 campaign, failure to beat Everton in the season's finale brought City's first-ever taste of relegation and it was to be 65 years before top-flight status would be regained.