The North Caledonian Football League (NCFL) or North Caley is an amateur football league operating in the highlands of Scotland. Founded in 1896, the league has regularly contained a number of "A" or Reserve teams of Highland Football League (HFL) clubs alongside local amateur teams. As these HFL clubs are full members of the Scottish Football Association, disciplinary procedures in the NCFL are handled directly by the SFA - a unique situation in Scottish amateur football. NCFL club Golspie Sutherland are themselves SFA full members and as of season 2007–08, obtain direct entry to the Scottish Cup. Prior to this they entered the Scottish Qualifying Cup (North) each season.
The NCFL is characterized by the number of clubs who use it as a 'stepping-stone' to try and either join the Highland League or join the Junior grade of football. Previous NCFL members include Wick Academy and Fort William who both left to join the Highland Football League and the reserve teams of the Scottish Football League clubs Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Ross County.
Read more about North Caledonian Football League: Member Clubs For The 2012–13 Season, Recent History, Previous Champions
Famous quotes containing the words north, football and/or league:
“We have heard all of our lives how, after the Civil War was over, the South went back to straighten itself out and make a living again. It was for many years a voiceless part of the government. The balance of power moved away from it—to the north and the east. The problems of the north and the east became the big problem of the country and nobody paid much attention to the economic unbalance the South had left as its only choice.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward the Light Brigade!”
—Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892)