The Lanarkshire Junior Football League was a

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

league competition operated in

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark ( gd, Siorrachd Lannraig; sco, Lanrikshire), is a historic county, lieutenancy area and registration county in the central Lowlands of Scotland. Lanarkshire is the most populous county in Scotl ...

under the

Scottish Junior Football Association The Scottish Junior Football Association (SJFA) is an affiliated national association of the Scottish Football Association and is the governing body for the junior grade of football in Scotland. The term "junior" refers to the level of football ...

which operated from 1891, being the oldest-running regional competition of its kind until a merger in 1968. The league was formed in 1891, at which point six of the ten finalists in the 5-year history of the

Scottish Junior Cup The Scottish Junior Cup is an annual football competition organised by the Scottish Junior Football Association. The competition has been held every year since the inception of the SJFA in 1886 and, as of the 2022–23 edition, 108 teams compet ...

had been from Lanarkshire (not counting those in the city of

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popu ...

under its boundaries of the time) indicating a strong presence at Junior level, with teams forming in many towns and villages involved in the thriving coal mining and steelworking industries. However, by 1895 a rival

Glasgow Junior Football League The Glasgow Junior Football League (GJL) was a football league competition operated under the Scottish Junior Football Association between 1895 and 1927.

was formed, and that quickly became a superior competition due to the abundance of players, higher attendances and lower costs associated with travelling. The proximity of the big city also caused problems for the Lanarkshire league organisers, with the clubs based in their territory consistently seeking to join the GJL, while the short distances involved made it feasible to do so whenever they were considered a useful addition. Some Lanarkshire clubs also switched between their local league and the

Scottish Junior Football League The Scottish Junior Football League (SJL) was a Scottish football competition that, through various incarnations, existed from 1892 to 1947. It was based in the west of Scotland and largely consisted of Junior clubs that were not considered good ...

, which had no specific territory but also existed in the shadow of the Glasgow-based league until it folded in the 1940s. Unlike the GJL and the

Western Junior Football League The Ayrshire Junior Football League, known as the Western Junior League from 1919 until 1968, was a football league competition operated in Ayrshire under the Scottish Junior Football Association which operated until a merger in 2002. The league ...

(the equivalent based in Ayrshire), the Lanarkshire league was not involved in the

Intermediate dispute The Intermediate dispute was a major split in Scottish football which lasted from 1925 to 1931 and concerned the compensation that Junior clubs received when one of their players moved to a Senior football league side. Although largely confined to ...

relating to compensation payments due to clubs joining

Scottish Football League The Scottish Football League (SFL) was a league featuring professional and semi-professional football clubs mostly from Scotland.One club, Berwick Rangers, is based in the town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is located approximately 4 km sout ...

teams, although several of its members defected to the rebel group, some never returning; during those clubs' four-year absence from the Scottish Junior Cup, Lanarkshire's Burnbank Athletic reached the final twice. When then dispute was resolved in 1931, a new regional knockout tournament, the

West of Scotland Junior Cup The West of Scotland Junior Challenge Cup was an annual Scottish football competition played in a one-leg knockout format (played at 'home' team grounds as drawn, until the final at a neutral venue), organised by the West Region of the Scottish ...

, was carried over from the Intermediate setup, and after a few years the Lanarkshire league clubs were invited to take part, although as in the Scottish Cup, teams were involved in the latter stages only occasionally (5 wins in 34 editions), the competition being dominated by the GJL's successor, the

Central League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consi ...

. Unlike most of Junior football, the Lanarkshire league went into abeyance for five years during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

, with clubs playing in the 'Lanark & Lothians Junior League' during the conflict. In 1968 the Junior football system across Scotland was reorganised, with Lanarkshire's league (which now only had ten member clubs due to defections, and several clubs folding as traditional industries declined and entire communities dispersed) merging into the Central setup. It was the first Scottish Junior league to be established, at the time of its dissolution it was the longest-running.Lanarkshire Junior League
Scottish Football Historical Archive

Champions

Key: Notes

List of winners

Notes

References

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Scottish Junior FA Structure

{{Scottish Junior Football Association 1891 establishments in Scotland 1968 disestablishments in Scotland Sports leagues established in 1891 Sports leagues disestablished in 1968 Defunct Scottish Junior Football Association leagues Football in South Lanarkshire Football in North Lanarkshire Scottish Junior Football Association, West Region