History of the National Conference League

The National Conference League is the top league in the pyramid of amateur rugby leagues run by the British Amateur Rugby League Association (BARLA).

Contents

Background

While in the early days rugby league had an established structure outside of the professional leagues with county-wide competitions and the like, this soon decayed into local district leagues usually only featuring teams from one or two towns with no input from the professional game. This eventually saw the number of amateur rugby league clubs reduce to a mere 150 in the early 1970s.

Against this background British Amateur Rugby League Association were formed in 1973. One of their first acts was to merge the vast majority of the district leagues into three regional leagues: the Yorkshire League, the Pennine League and the North Western Counties League. For geographical reasons the Hull League, the Cumberland League, the Barrow League and the London League were left as they were.

This allowed clubs to play at more appropriate standards as there were more divisions, and this factor along with the improved governance of BARLA saw the standard and numbers of clubs rise quickly. However, while there was a National Cup, the best amateur clubs were still divided between six leagues and thus the desire for an amateur National League arose.

National League

Early years

Against this background the BARLA National League was formed. The inaugural season was held in 1986-1987. The league received twenty-seven applications including five from the Barrow area alone, and more unusually, one from a London club- South London Warriors.

In the end the league settled on ten members, all from the northern strongholds of the game. These were four clubs from Yorkshire: Dudley Hill, Milford Marlins, Heworth and West Hull; four clubs from Lancashire: Pilkington Recs, Wigan St Patrick's, Woolston Rovers and Leigh Miners' Welfare; and two clubs from Cumbria: Egremont Rangers and Millom. These ten clubs were to be the members for each of the first three seasons.

1986/87

Champions: Heworth

1987/88

Champions: Milford Marlins

1988/89

Champions: West Hull

Two division era

The National League soon proved popular and for the 1989/90 season extended the top flight to twelve teams to include Lock Lane and Mayfield. However, this modest expansion wasn't enough and the 1989/90 season also saw the addition of a 10-team second division (to expand to 12 teams after one season).

The ten inaugural members of the second division were as follows: Saddleworth Rangers, Leigh East, British Aerospace, Barrow Island, Askam, Knottingley, Redhill, Dewsbury Celtic, Shaw Cross Sharks and East Leeds. This expansion was to prove successful with Leigh East becoming the first non-founder members to win the league in the 1990/91 season.

1989/90

1990/91

1991/92

1992/93

National Conference League

In 1993 the RFL wanted to contract the professional ranks from 35 to 32 teams. However, their initial plan to place the excluded teams in the Alliance (reserve grade) faced a legal challenge so they needed an alternative competition to place them in. The RFL thus proposed a league to bridge the gap between the professional and amateur leagues to feature the three demoted semi-pro clubs plus Hemel Hempstead (who alreasy played in the Alliance as a semi-pro club) and eight BARLA clubs.

However, BARLA wanted all National League clubs to be in any such league and since the RFL were in a tough legal position they were prepared to compromise with BARLA and thus the three division National Conference League was born. Other concessions made were an increase in the BARLA representation in the Challenge Cup from a mere 2 clubs to 64 and allowing the National Conference League champions to apply to replace the bottom team in the pro leagues.

However, the latter concession soon disappeared as the pro leagues moved to summer and the National Conference League did not want to move, furthermore Woolston Rovers' application to replace Highfield was voted out (the one club elected to the league from the National Conference League being Chorley Borough who were themselves a former semi-pro league club). The National Conference League soon expanded all divisions to 14 teams, and lost the remaining semi-pro clubs. This expansion was until recently highly successful but the lower divisions have since struggled for a full complement of members.

Due to the switch of the pro game to summer the National Conference League gradually came to be seen as solely a BARLA league, despite being temporarily expelled from BARLA in 2002[1][2], with only three National Conference League teams joining National League Three which was intended as a league to bridge the gap between the pro and amateur games. However, this was to change in 2008 when the National Conference League decided they did not like the path BARLA was taking and downgraded the league's BARLA membership from full to associate[3]. In 2009 the National Conference League introduced a summer competition for clubs wanting to play year round, although some consider this a test for a more permanent switch to summer.

Founder members of the National Conference League

1993/94

1994/95

1995/96

1996/97

1997/98

1998/99

1999/2000

2000/01

2001/02

2002/03

2003/04

Elected to league for next season: Ovenden and Stanningley

2004/05

2005/06

2006/07

2007/08

2008/09

2009/10

2010/2011

Champions: Thatto Heath Crusaders Relegated: Bradford Dudley Hill, Wigan St Jude's and York Acorn

Promoted: Oulton Raiders, Myton Warriors and Ince Rose Bridge Relegated: Eccles & Salford Roosters and Normanton Knights

Promoted: Hunslet Warriors and Egremont Rangers Elected to league for transitional season: Askam and Widnes West Bank Elected to league for summer 2012 season: Featherstone Lions. Others to be confirmed at a later date

NB: The promotion and relegation between divisions 1 and 2 are provisional as the league has elected new members. If the league remains at three divisions then division 1 would be expected to return to its full complement of 14 teams. However, the league may add another division and there are at least six further applicants to join for the summer 2012 season. In which case no club could lose out on their current earnt league position [4]

2011 Transitional Season

To allow clubs to switch to the summer season more easily a short season will be carried out from August to November 2011 with the following group format:

Clubs will play 12 league games (home and away in their pool and play two other clubs home and away), then there will be playoffs. There will also be a reserve team league with format to be confirmed.

Sources

External links