Football League Third Division North
The
Third Division North of
The Football League was a level in
English association football, which ran parallel to
Third Division South from
1921 to
1958.
The Third Division South had been formed the previous season (as simply the Third Division) with 22 teams mostly from the
Southern League. It was decided that this gave the league too much of a southern bias, so the Third Division North was created to redress the balance. However, there was not a northern equivalent of the Southern League, so only 20 teams could be found, taken from several regional leagues: the Midland League, the
Central League, the
North Eastern League, the
Lancashire Combination and the
Birmingham Combination. A further two teams were added in
1923 to take the total to 22.
Only one promotion place was available each season from Third Division North to the
Second Division, which made it very difficult to win promotion. Eight teams were ever-present in the division for the thirty years of its existence.
In
1958 the two regional Third Divisions were merged together, to create the new
Third Division and
Fourth Division.
