The history of the English non-League football system encompasses the history of non-League football in England. The non-League football system describes the hierarchical system of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs that sits below the English Football League. Currently, The Football Association administers the top six levels of the English non-League football system. It has named this the National League System (NLS). The NLS spans six levels of the overall English football league system, and consists of around 48 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.
Before 1951 Tier:1921-1959: League:3Football League Third Division4Southern League West Southern League East
In the late nineteenth century a number of different football leagues were developed. Of these, only the Football League and the Football Alliance had national and professional pretensions. The Football Alliance was merged into the Football League in 1892, creating a two-tier competition. Both of these divisions were strongly weighted towards the North and the Midlands, since Southern County Football Associations were opposed to professionalism. Nonetheless, in 1894, the Southern League was formed, of both professional and amateur teams. It was considered to rival the Football League in quality and its strength was demonstrated by providing the only non-league FA Cup winner, Tottenham Hotspur in 1901, and by attracting a northern side in Bradford Park Avenue to join in 1907.
As the Football League expanded further since its merger with the Football Alliance, it admitted clubs from a variety of leagues. The Midland League, founded in 1889, provided most of the additional clubs until the First World War, in addition to the Southern League. Other leagues which provided teams promoted to the League included:
The Lancashire League (merged with The Lancashire Combination in 1903) The Combination (centred around Cheshire, Staffordshire and North Wales; folded in 1911) The Central League (From 1911) The Birmingham & District League The Northern Alliance
The Northern League (1889) barred professional clubs in 1906 and remained strictly amateur until 1974. It rarely provided new entrants to the Football League unless its constituent clubs wished to turn professional.
This was mirrored by the Isthmian League (1905), covering London and the South-East. Despite their relative lack of impact on the Football League, they dominated the FA Amateur Cup, collecting the trophy 50 times between them from 1894 to 1974.
This remaining group of regional amateur and semi-professional leagues formed a patchwork across England and Wales, collectively known as "non-League football". Non-League in this sense referred to outside the national, professional Football League, rather than without a league. There was relatively little movement between leagues, although ambitious clubs could apply for membership of a stronger competition, often to replace a club that had folded.
Creation of the Third Division In 1920, the top division of the Southern League was merged into the Football League to form the Third Division, establishing the Southern League as a feeder to the Football League and ending claims to their parity. The following season a further division, consisting of teams from a series of northern leagues, formed the Third Division North, with the existing league renamed the Third Division South accordingly.
Many predominant non-League leagues contained a mixture of Football League reserve teams as well as smaller clubs. The Central League became composed entirely of reserve teams after the foundation of the Third Division North encompassed all six of its remaining first teams.
1951–79: Southern League and Northern Premier League Election to the Football League Clubs in the strongest leagues could apply to join the Football League by standing in an annual election. The bottom four teams in the League's lowest division were also obliged to stand in the election, and the existing League members would vote on the four teams from all those applying.
Typically, around 10–15 non-League teams applied each year, but most of them gained only a handful of votes, and between 1951 and 1979, only seven non-league clubs won election to the League at the expense of an existing League club, in addition to the four clubs which benefited from the expansion of the Football League in 1950. The teams that were promoted to the League were:
1950: Shrewsbury Town (Midland League), Scunthorpe & Lindsey United (Midland League), Colchester United (Southern League), Gillingham (Southern League) were elected to expand the Football League from 88 to 92 teams. 1951: Workington (North Eastern League) replaced New Brighton 1960: Peterborough United (Midland League) replaced Gateshead 1962: Oxford United (as Headington United) (Southern League) elected to fill the vacancy left by Accrington Stanley's resignation 1970: Cambridge United (Southern League) replaced Bradford Park Avenue 1972: Hereford United (Southern League) replaced Barrow 1977: Wimbledon (Southern League) replaced Workington 1978: Wigan Athletic (Northern Premier League) replaced Southport
1951–68: Southern League The Southern League provided many of the subsequently promoted teams along with the Midland League.
No clear northern equivalent to the Southern League was established, although the Lancashire Combination, the Cheshire League (successor to The Combination, established 1919) and the Northern Alliance League occasionally provided successful applicants until the establishment of the Northern Premier League.
The Birmingham & District League's last Football League application was made in 1958, and its top teams started to promote to an expanded Southern League. Although this was not a formal system of promotion and relegation, its top teams continued to join the Southern League or the Midland League.
There was still an absence of a unified northern equivalent to the Southern League and, in-part due to this, there was the first of often chaotic reorganisations of the non-league game.
The Lancashire Combination and The Combination (Cheshire League) remained largely unaffected by the chaos of reorganisations. The Northern Alliance was not as lucky and folded, being replaced by the North-Eastern League in 1964.
1968–79: NPL Tier:1959–1979: League:4Football League Fourth Division5Northern Premier LeagueSouthern LeaguePremier Division6Cheshire LeagueMidland LeagueNorthern Alliance Lancashire Combination Southern League1st Division NorthSouthern League1st Division South Amateur LeaguesIsthmian LeaguePremier DivisionNorthern League Isthmian League1st Division– Isthmian League2nd Division– In 1968, the Northern Premier League was formed by the strongest clubs from the north of England outside the Football League, and after 1968, all League applicants came from either the Southern League or the Northern Premier League. The Northern League and the Isthmian League (1905), remained the strongest amateur leagues.
The Northern Premier League drew teams mainly from the Lancashire Combination, Cheshire League and Midland League, and these leagues were demoted in status below the Northern Premier League, along with the Northern Alliance.
Mixing of professional and amateur clubs By 1974, The Football Association had stopped distinguishing between professionals and amateurs.
The Isthmian League went on a slow process of professionalisation, though even in the early 1980s many of its clubs remained amateur.
1979–82: APL Tier:Division:4 Football League Fourth Division5 Alliance Premier League6 Northern Premier League Southern LeagueMidland Division Southern LeagueSouthern Division The Northern League remained staunchly amateur and was eclipsed by the Northern Premier League; it refused to enter the National League System until 1991, when many of its teams had defected to other leagues and it was forced to accept feeder status to the Northern Premier League, having previously refused feeder status to the Alliance Premier League.
Alliance Premier League In 1979, the Alliance Premier League was formed by a group of leading Southern League and Northern Premier League clubs. The Southern and Northern Premier Leagues became "feeder" leagues to the APL, with automatic promotion and relegation between them. The Isthmian League, while it was now becoming recognised as one of the strongest semi-professional leagues, remained outside the fledgling "pyramid" until 1985. The Southern League also restructured, reducing itself from three divisions to two (running in parallel) to compensate for the loss of many of its Premier Division clubs to the new league.
One of the reasons for the creation of the APL was so that there would be a single club each year that could apply for Football League status, so as not to split the favourable votes between several clubs, as had happened in many previous years. Some years even saw the applicants receive more votes combined than any of the clubs up for re-election (including every year between 1973 and 1976). However, the League was still reluctant to increase its turnover of clubs, and none of the early APL champions succeeded in gaining election.
1982–2004: Feeding Southern League feeders
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 Charterhouse)
The Midland Alliance was formed in 1994 by clubs from the West Midlands (Regional) League and the Midland Combination. The latter two became feeder leagues to the Alliance along with the Leicestershire Senior League. The Alliance and Combination later merged in 2014 to create the Midland Football League.
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
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.
Northern Premier League feeders 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 1991) 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.
1982–84