English football clubs have entered European association football competitions (UEFA Champions League/European Cup, UEFA Cup/Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, UEFA Intertoto Cup and the now defunct UEFA Cup Winners Cup) since 1955, when Birmingham City and a London XI took part in the inaugural Inter-Cities Fairs Cup. English clubs have also taken part in the FIFA Club World Cup on four occasions, and the Intercontinental Cup on six occasions.
The European Cup started in 1955–56, but there was no English representative during that inaugural season as Chelsea had been persuaded to withdraw by The Football League; the first English side to take part was Manchester United F.C but it was Celtic became the first British side to win the European Cup in 1968, ten years after their first attempts to win the Cup had been effectively ended when eight of their players died in the Munich air disaster when flying home from Belgrade after qualifying for the 1957-58 semi-final. But they were not the first English club to win any European competition, Tottenham Hotspur having won the Cup Winners' Cup in 1963 (nor were Manchester United the first British club to win the European Cup, that honour having gone to Scotland's Glasgow Celtic the previous year).