Football Conference - History

History

The Football Conference was formed in 1979 from leading teams in the Northern Premier League and Southern League and was originally known as the Alliance Premier League. The founding members were:

Barrow and Northwich had previously been members of The Football League. Barrow failed re-election in 1972, while Northwich resigned from the league in 1894. Barnet and Yeovil are currently members of the Football League, while Scarborough, Maidstone (both now in new incarnations) and Boston have also tasted league football since the formation of the Football Conference, but are now back in non-league football.

Bangor City has since moved to the Welsh football league system, while AP Leamington, Maidstone, Nuneaton, Scarborough and Telford later collapsed and had to be reconstituted in lower English leagues. Gravesend & Northfleet changed its name to Ebbsfleet United in 2007.

Since 1984, the Conference has been publicly known by the names of a succession of official title sponsors. The name was officially changed from Alliance Premier to the Football Conference in 1986. Below is a list of sponsors and what they chose to call the league:

• 1984–1986: Gola (Gola League)
• 1986–1998: General Motors (GM Vauxhall Conference)
• 1998–2007: Nationwide Building Society (Nationwide Conference, and from 2004 additionally Nationwide Conference North / Nationwide Conference South)
• 2007–2010: Blue Square (Blue Square Premier / Blue Square North / Blue Square South)
• 2010–2013: Blue Square Bet (Blue Square Bet Premier / Blue Square Bet North / Blue Square Bet South)

The Football Conference had a single division for the first 25 years of its existence, but since the 2004–05 season has consisted of three divisions. The original division was renamed Conference National and two new regional divisions one level down were introduced, Conference North and Conference South. The new clubs were drawn from the Northern Premier League, Southern League, and Isthmian League according to guidelines developed by the NLS Committee.

Only seven teams have had the honour of winning the Conference on two occasions; Altrincham (1980, 1981), Barnet (1991, 2005), Enfield (1983, 1986), Kidderminster Harriers (1994, 2000), Macclesfield Town (1995, 1997), Maidstone United, (1984, 1989) and Stevenage Borough (1996, 2010). Kidderminster also finished second in 1997. Of those sides only one, Barnet, was promoted to the Football League on both occasions; Maidstone's first title came before the era of automatic promotion, while Kidderminster Harriers, Macclesfield Town and Stevenage Borough were denied promotion because their grounds were not up to the required standard at the time of their first win. However, all three were promoted when they took their second title. Altrincham are the only team in history to retain the title, as at the time there was no automatic promotion to the Football League.

No former Conference club has yet reached the Premier League, although four clubs did compete in its predecessor, the Football League First Division: Carlisle United, Oxford United, Luton Town and Grimsby Town. Carlisle and Oxford have since returned to the League, albeit both by winning the promotion playoffs. Additionally, Luton and Oxford are the only clubs to play league matches against each other on all top five tiers of English football.