Doncaster

Doncaster grew up around its railway works, and it was a mechanic from the Great Northern Railway sheds, Albert Jenkins, who put the club together in 1879. The first game under the Doncaster Rovers name came that October, a draw against Romarsh, and the club has kept the name through one full collapse: debts wound it up in 1914, and it took until 1919, and a new limited company, to bring it back.

The ground has moved twice since. Rovers left Belle Vue, home for over eighty years, in 2007 for what is now the Eco-Power Stadium, a 15,231-seat ground with every seat covered. Local rivalries run along the M18 and across South Yorkshire, against Rotherham United, Barnsley and Scunthorpe United, but most of the club's honours have come from grinding through the lower divisions rather than settling scores with them: three Third Division North titles either side of the war years, back-to-back Fourth Division championships in the 1960s, and a run through League One and League Two title wins that runs right up to 2025, when Rovers went up as champions again.

No one wore the shirt longer than James Coppinger. He signed as a winger, stayed long enough to become a Doncaster institution, and finished with 574 appearances for the club, a record that puts him well clear of anyone else who has played for Rovers.