- Athenian League
The Athenian League was an English
amateur football league in and aroundLondon .History
The league was formed in 1912 with nine clubs, but had to close down in 1914 due to the onset of
World War I . When it reformed in 1920, only three of the previous teams rejoined. Clubs left and joined the league at a rate of about one a year, with a number leaving to join theIsthmian League , the strongest amateur league in the London area. Total membership remained fairly stable at between 12 and 16 clubs until 1963, when it absorbed most of the clubs from two rival leagues, the Corinthian League (whose former clubs formed the Athenian League First Division) and theDelphian League (whose former clubs formed the Athenian League Second Division). The existing division was renamed the Premier Division.Over the following years, it lost many clubs to stronger leagues, particularly the Isthmian League and Southern League, and successive waves of Isthmian League expansion in 1973, 1977 and 1984 finally forced the league to disband. The league was amongst the first in England to be sponsored by an external company when, in the late 1970s, it was billed as the Kingsmead Athenian League. [cite book|last=Williams|first=Tony|title=The FA Non-League Football Annual 1978–79|date=1978|publisher=MacDonald and Jane's Publishers Ltd|pages=p.201]
Champions
The champion clubs were as follows: [ [http://www.rsssf.com/tablese/engathenianchamp.html RSSSF] ]
In 1977 the league was reduced to a single division
Clubs progressing to higher leagues
The following teams left the Athenian League to join stronger leagues. All joined the
Isthmian League apart from those in italics, who joined the Southern LeagueReferences
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