History of the English football league system

The National League System consists of a group of semi-professional football leagues in England, below the fully-professional FA Premier League and The Football League. The NLS spans seven levels of the overall English football league system, and consists of around 80 divisions in total.

Although many of the leagues within the National League System have been around for a long time, the System itself is a fairly recent development. It was created by The Football Association in the 1990s to bring together various ad-hoc arrangements from around the country, and to give clubs a clear path of promotion and relegation from the lower levels of the pyramid right through to the professional leagues.

"For more information on the current structure of the NLS, see the main article".

Before 1979

In 1982, the Southern League reinstated its Premier Division, absorbing 13 clubs from various smaller regional leagues. From this season onwards, the exchange of clubs between the regional leagues and the "big three" feeder leagues increased considerably, with around 8 clubs each season being promoted to the Southern, Northern Premier or Isthmian Leagues, and around 5 being relegated (the balance being made up of clubs folding or merging).

Southern League feeders 1982-2003:

* West Midlands (Regional) League: 13 clubs (to 1994)
* Midland Combination: 10 clubs (to 1994)
* Midland Alliance: 7 clubs (from 1995)
* United Counties League: 8 clubs
* Eastern Counties League: 5 clubs
* Hellenic League: 11 clubs
* Western League: 8 clubs
* Wessex League: 7 clubs
* Sussex County League: 4 clubs
* Kent League: 9 clubs
* "Spartan League: 2 clubs"
* "Athenian League: 1 club"
* "Northern Counties (East) League: 1 club (Shepshed Dynamo)"

The Midland Alliance was formed in 1994 by clubs from the West Midlands (Regional) League and the Midland Combination. The Leicestershire Senior League is currently also a feeder league to the Alliance.

The Wessex League was formed in 1986 by clubs from the Hampshire League and from some neighbouring counties; it superseded the Hampshire League as a direct feeder for the Southern League.

Isthmian League feeders 1982-2003:
* Essex Senior League: 10 clubs
* Spartan League: 6 clubs (to 1997)
* South Midlands League: 1 club (to 1997)
* Spartan South Midlands League: 2 clubs (from 1998)
* Combined Counties League: 7 clubs
* "United Counties League: 1 club (Stevenage Borough, 1984)"
* "Hampshire League: 1 club"
* "Eastern Counties League: 1 club"

* Athenian League: 17 clubs "(mostly in 1984 IL expansion; see below)

The Spartan South Midlands League was formed in 1998 by a merger of the Spartan League and the South Midlands League.

A rationalisation of feeder leagues in the north of England took place in 1982. The Northern League remained untouched, but the Yorkshire League and the Midland League amalgamated to form the Northern Counties (East) League, while to the west of the Pennines, the Cheshire County League and the Lancashire Combination joined forces to become the North West Counties League. Both these leagues became feeders for the Northern Premier League, but without automatic promotion and relegation — clubs still had to apply to join the higher league.

Northern Premier League feeders 1982-2003:
* North West Counties League: 35 clubs "(including 1987 NPL expansion)"
* Northern Counties (East) League: 18 clubs "(including 1987 NPL expansion)"
* Northern League: 5 clubs "(from 1988?)"

1984-87

2002-04

For the 2006-2007 season, the Isthmian League First Division was split back out into North and South sections again. The Southern League Division Ones were also rearranged slightly, and renamed as Midlands and South & West. Plans to split the Northern Premier League First Division in the same way were put on hold due to a lack of suitable clubs.

Each of the divisions at Steps 2-4 has a quota of 22 clubs, although the Northern Premier League First Division ran with 24 clubs for this season as part of the future expansion plans. The Conference National was expanded to 24 clubs, the same as the Football League's three divisions.

A total of 30 clubs were promoted from Step 5 to Step 4, including 4 from the Isthmian League Second Division. The division was then disbanded, with its remaining clubs distributed across the other Step 5 leagues in the South East. It was planned to reduce the number of divisions at that level from 15 to 12, but there was no consensus on how this should be achieved, so 2006-07 ran with fourteen Step 5 divisions, each with between eighteen and twenty-two clubs.

It was hoped that the restructuring will improve the lower levels of the system in a number of ways. There will be less travelling for the Level 8 clubs as there will be five divisions, not four. This will be of particular benefit to Midlands-based clubs who will now predominantly compete in the Southern League Division One Midlands, rather than being split between the geographically larger older divisions. There should also be less overlapping at Level 9.

Lower down the pyramid, the Liverpool County Combination merged with the I Zingari League to form the Liverpool County Premier League, while the Somerset County League split its lower levels from Division Two and Division Three to Division Two East and Division Two West. The East Cornwall Premier League changed its name to the East Cornwall League, divided into two divisions (Premier Division and Division One). In a purely cosmetic change, the Bedford & District League became the Bedfordshire League.

2007-08

For the 2007-08 season, the Northern Premier League Division One has been split into two, completing the plan of six divisions at Step 4. They will be split along a North/South basis. [http://www.tonykempster.co.uk/maps07-08.htm] Because each division only has 18 clubs initially, they will play an unusual format, with each division being split into East and West sections. Each club will play all the others in its division home and away, and will also play all the others in its section a third time, either home "or" away. This will give each club 42 games (rather than the 34 they would have with just a straight round-robin). The extra games are spread across the season.

Further down, the South Western League and the Devon County League merged to form the South West Peninsula League. It has a Premier Division at Step 6, and Division One East and Division One West at Step 7. The new league will feed directly in to the Premier Division of the Western League, in parallel with the Western League Division One. It is hoped that the new division will encourage more clubs from the West Country to move up the pyramid, without having to jump directly from local Cornwall and West Devon leagues to the Western League (which can mean journeys of over 200 miles each way).

Future

For the 2008-09 season, it is planned to create a new Step 6 league in the East Midlands called the East Midlands Counties League, taking clubs from the Central Midlands League and the Leicestershire Senior League (both currently at Step 7). [cite web | url=http://www.allianceleague.co.uk/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=76798&sid=179e7037a8cb69b73790f30c984463dc | title=Central Midlands Lge and Leicestershire Senior League merge | accessdate=2008-03-02] It will run in parallel with the Northern Counties East League Division One, which will be recentered on Yorkshire, and both will feed into the Northern Counties East League Premier Division. Both the Central Midlands League and the Leicestershire Senior League will retain their current formats and their current Step 7 status for their highest divisions.

A new Step 7 league in Surrey is also planned, provisionally named the Surrey Elite Intermediate League. This is proposed to include the best clubs from the existing Intermediate leagues in the county, together with some clubs dropping down from the Combined Counties League Division One, and some teams from areas adjacent to the county boundary.

The FA is still trying to reduce the number of Step 5 leagues down to twelve. In 2006, it asked the Essex Senior League (one of the last remaining one-division leagues at this level) and the Kent League to consider merging. However, no merger has occurred as of the 2008-09 season.

ources

* [http://www.fchd.info/ Football Club History Database]
* [http://www.tonykempster.co.uk/ Tony Kempster's site]
* [http://www.btinternet.com/~brentours/SP36.htm A critical view of NLS restructuring]

References