Association football league in England
Football league
The Southern Counties East Football League is an English football league established in 1966, which has teams based in Kent and Southeast London. Its two divisions are allocated at Step 5 and Step 6 of the National League System (which equates to Levels 9–10 of the overall English football league system). At its inception it was known for two seasons as the Kent Premier League and then, until 2013, as the Kent League.
There is no direct connection between this league and a previous Kent League that existed from 1894 to 1959, despite many clubs having spells of membership in both leagues.
History
The current league was formed in 1966, from teams in and around the county of Kent, when the Thames & Medway Combination (which had its origins in 1896) was expanded and renamed the Kent Premier League.[1] The league began with fourteen teams - five of the six members of the final Thames & Medway Combination season (Deal Town Reserves, Orpington Athletic, Sittingbourne Reserves, Snowdown CW and Tonbridge Reserves) plus nine additional members (Ashford Town Reserves, Bexley United Reserves, Canterbury City Reserves, Faversham Town, Folkestone Town Reserves, Margate Reserves, Ramsgate Athletic Reserves, Sheppey United Reserves,Tunbridge Wells Rangers Reserves). Two years later in 1968 it was renamed the Kent Football League[2] and the league knock-out competition, the Challenge Cup, was introduced. Over its first ten years many of its members were reserve sides of Southern League teams, however, following the 1978–79 season the existing single league was named as Division One with the reserve sides remaining in the competition shifted into a newly formed Division Two (which additionally included some first teams); a Division Two knock-out cup competition was also initiated. Subsequently all divisions below the league's top division were known as the 'Reserves Section' and there was no automatic promotion/relegation from the Reserves Section into/from the top division.
The league continued with this format until the 1998–99 season when the divisions were renamed as the Premier Division and Division One (from Division One and Division Two respectively). For the two seasons 2000–01 and 2001–02 the Reserves Section Division One was split into two equal ranked regional (North and South) Divisions with a play-off match between the two winners to decide the Division One champion. Thereafter, for the next nine seasons, Division One reverted to a single league, initially comprising the higher ranked teams from the two regional Division One leagues, with a new Division Two taking the remaining teams, with promotion/relegation between Division One and Division Two. For the 2012–2013 season, the last of which the league was known as the Kent League, the competition reverted to a two division format, comprising the Premier Division and Reserves Section Division One.
Prior to the 2011–12 season, clubs could be relegated to the Kent County League, although in practice this rarely happened. The formation of the new Kent Invicta Football League for the 2011–12 season meant there was a lower ranked (Step 6) league allowing for more frequent promotion/relegation between the leagues.
In 2013 the league changed its name to the Southern Counties East League, to reflect that many of its member clubs no longer played within the county of Kent.[3] and reverted to a single division for three seasons. At the end of the 2015–16 season, the league merged with the Kent Invicta League: the former single Southern Counties East League was designated as the Premier Division and the former Kent Invicta league became Division One.[4][5]
