Southern Football League
For other uses, see Southern Football League (disambiguation). |
Southern League logo |
The
Southern League (currently known under the terms of a sponsorship deal as the British Gas Business Southern League) is an
English football league for semi-professional and amateur teams, covering South West and South Central England, the Midlands, and parts of Wales.
Professional football (and
professional sport in general) developed more slowly in
southern England than in the
north. Professionalism was sanctioned by the
Football Association as early as
1885, but when
the Football League was founded in
1888 it was based entirely in the north and
midlands with the establishment and
county FA's in the south being firmly opposed to professionalism.
Royal Arsenal (nowadays simply
Arsenal) were the first London club to turn professional in 1891 and were one of the prime motivators behind an attempt to set up a Southern League to mirror the existing Northern- and Midlands-based Football League. However, this venture failed in the face of opposition from the London FA and Royal Arsenal (by then renamed Woolwich Arsenal) joined the Football League as its only representative south of Birmingham in 1893.
Nonetheless, the Southern League, a competition for both professional and amateur clubs, was founded in
1894 and soon became the dominant competition outside
the Football League in southern and central England. Indeed, in 1907, it accepted
Bradford Park Avenue, a top northern club as a member, reflecting its senior position at the time.
Whilst still a Southern League club,
Tottenham Hotspur became the first and so far only team to win the
FA Cup after the establishment of the league as a
non-league club; this happened in
1901, although
Southampton reached the final in 1900 and 1902 showing the strength of the Southern League. The relative strengths of the two leagues was during this period elucidated through the annual
Charity Shield.
In
1920, virtually the entire top division of the Southern League was absorbed by the Football League to become that league's new
Third Division. A year later this became the
Third Division South, the delay in the incorporation of the
Third Division North being due to the lack of an overall coherent structure in the North outside of the Football League.
For the next six decades, the Football League and Southern League would exchange a limited number of clubs as a result of the older league's re-election process. From 1920 on, the Southern League's status as a semi-professional league was firmly established.
With its clubs seeking a more regular means of advancing to the Football League, in
1979 the Southern League became a feeder to the new
Football Conference along with the
Isthmian League and the
Northern Premier League, and the top Southern clubs of the day joined the new league. In turn, the Conference would eventually succeed in become a feeder to the Football League. The league lost more of its top clubs in
2004 when the Conference added two regional divisions below the existing
Conference National.
The league structure has changed several times over the years, and currently consists of a
Premier Division at step 3 of the pyramid, and
Division One South and West and
Division One Midlands at step 4. The winners of the Premier Division, together with the winners of a playoff, will be promoted to the
Conference North or
Conference South divisions, depending on their location.
Clubs relegated from the Southern League can be placed in any of the fourteen leagues below, but in practice it is likely to be one of the following (based on geography):
*
Combined Counties League*
Eastern Counties League*
Essex Senior League*
Hellenic League*
Midland Football Alliance*
Spartan South Midlands League*
United Counties League*
Wessex League*
Western League*
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