Sunderland Association Football Club is an English professional football club that plays in a championship referred to as the Sky Bet Championship for what reasons?
Sunderland A.F.C. Sunderland Association Football Club ( , ) is an English professional football club based in the city of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear. Sunderland currently plays in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English football. Since its formation in 1879, the club has won six top-flight (First Division, now the Premier League) titles (1892, 1893, 1895, 1902, 1913 and 1936), a total only bettered by five other clubs, and has finished runners-up five times. The club has also won the FA Cup twice (1937 and 1973) and been runners-up twice (1913 and 1992), as well as winning the FA Community Shield in 1936 and being finalists the following year. Sunderland have also been Football League Cup finalists in 1985 and 2014.
List of former English Football League clubs The English Football League comprises professional football clubs from England and Wales. It was established in 1888 as The Football League and in 1892 the Second Division was formed, with the existing division being renamed the First Division. The First World War caused the League to be postponed from 1915 to 1919 and two seasons following its resumption a Third Division was introduced for one season, before being regionalised as North and South. The 1958–59 season saw the introduction of a Fourth Division, with the top 12 clubs from the Third Division North and South from the previous season starting in a national Third Division, and the bottom 12 starting in the Fourth Division. The introduction of the Premier League, which superseded the First Division as the top-flight of English football, caused a reorganisation of the English football league system in 1992, with the Fourth Division being disbanded. The First Division, Second Division and Third Division were rebranded as the Championship, League One and League Two respectively ahead of the 2004–05 season, which came as part of a then-sponsorship with Coca-Cola.