Northern Premier League
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Northern Premier League | |
|---|---|
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| Country |  England |
| Founded |
1968 |
| Divisions | 2 |
| No. of teams | 46 |
| Feeder to | Football Conference |
| Level(s) on pyramid | Level 7 - 8 |
| Website | Link |
The Northern Premier League, known in recent years as the UniBond League under a title sponsorship contract, is one of the regional English football leagues which sits directly below the Football Conference. Due to restructuring, from 2005 onwards its champions have been promoted to the Conference North division rather than the Conference National as was previously the case.
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[edit] History
The Northern Premier League was founded in 1968, decades after the other two leagues at what is now the seventh tier of the English football league system, the Southern League and Isthmian League. At that time it was considered to share the fifth tier with these leagues as well as the long-established Northern League.
Over the next two decades, the NPL successfully displaced its older rival to become the pre-eminent regional competition in northern England, with the Northern League eventually forced to accept status as feeder league to the NPL. The creation of what is now the Conference in 1979 and the Conference's addition of regional divisions in 2004 have effectively "demoted" the NPL by two tiers.
[edit] Current structure
The League has two divisions. The Premier Division has 22 clubs. The champions of this division together with the winner of a playoff between the second to fifth place finishers are promoted to Conference North. The bottom three teams are relegated to the first division (or another division at the same level in the pyramid). The First Division has 24 clubs. For the First Division, the champions are promoted to the Premier Division, along with the winners of a playoff between the second to fifth place clubs. The bottom two clubs of the First Division are relegated to one of the three feeder leagues. Promotion to the First Division is possible from each of these three leagues covering smaller sections of northern England, the Northern League, the Northern Counties East League, and the North West Counties League.
[edit] Previous winners
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