Home International Championship
What is the Home International Championship?
Who is the competition contested between?
What is the format of the competition?
The British Home Championship (historically known as the British International Championship or simply the International Championship) was an annual football competition contested between the United Kingdom’s four national teams: England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland (the last of whom competed as Ireland before). Starting during the 1883–84 season, it is the oldest international association football tournament and it was contested until the 1983–84 season, when it was abolished after 100 years.
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Each team played every other team once (making for a total of three matches per team and six matches in total). Generally, each team played either one or two matches at home and the remainder away, with home advantage between two teams alternating each year (so if England played Scotland at home one year, they played them away the next).
A team received two points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. From these points, a league table was constructed and whoever was top at the end of the competition was declared the winner. If two or more teams were equal on points, that position in the league table was shared (as was the Championship if it occurred between the top teams).
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In 1956, all four teams finished level on points and for the only time the Championship was shared four ways. From the 1978–79 Championship onwards, however, goal difference (total goals scored minus total goals conceded) was used to differentiate between teams level on points. If goal difference could still not separate them, then total goals scored was used.
Early editions of the tournament had no trophy. In 1935, a trophy was presented to King George V by the Football Association in recognition of the monarch’s silver jubilee. It was first awarded, as the “Jubilee Trophy”, to Scotland, victors of the 1935–36 competition. The trophy was of solid silver, consisting of a pedestal supporting a football surmounted by a winged figure. It bore the words “British International Championship”.