The Southern Counties East Football League is an English

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 established in 1966, which has teams based in

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

and Southeast

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

. Until 2013, it was known as the Kent League. There was a previous Kent League, that existed from 1894 to 1959.

History

The first Kent League was formed in 1894 and folded in 1959. Despite many of the same clubs having spells in membership, there is no direct connection between the two competitions. The current incarnation of the league was formed in 1966 as the Kent Premier League (changing to Kent Football League in 1968), and in its early years many of its members were reserve sides of Southern League teams. Gradually, the reserve sides were all shifted down into the lower divisions. In 2013 the league changed its name to the Southern Counties East League, to reflect the fact that many of its member clubs no longer played within the county of Kent. At the end of the 2015–16 season, the league merged with the

Kent Invicta League The Kent Invicta Football League was a football league in England, formed in 2011 to commence operations for the 2011–12 season. It covered the traditional English county of Kent, some of which is now in Greater London. It merged with the So ...

and the latter became the lower division of the merged league.

Sponsorship

For the 2012–13 season, the league was sponsored by Hürlimann Sternbräu lager, brewed by Kentish brewers,

Shepherd Neame Shepherd Neame is an English independent brewery which has been based in the market town of Faversham, Kent, for over 300 years. While 1698 is the brewery's official established date, town records show that commercial brewing has occurred on the ...

and was therefore billed as the Kent Hurlimann Football League.

Current structure

The league had only one division until the 2015–16 season. In the past it included additional divisions for reserve teams. The league is now at Steps 5–6 of the

National League System The National League System comprises the six levels of the English football league system immediately below the level of the English Football League. It comes under the jurisdiction of The Football Association. The National League System has a h ...

(which equates to Levels 9–10 of the overall

English football league system The English football league system, also known as the football pyramid, is a series of interconnected leagues for men's association football clubs in England, with five teams from Wales, one from Guernsey, one from Jersey and one from the Isl ...

) since the 2016–17 season, with clubs able to move upwards to the Step 4 divisions of the

Isthmian League The Isthmian League () is a regional men's football league covering Greater London, East and South East England, featuring mostly semi-professional clubs. Founded in 1905 by amateur clubs in the London area, the league now consists of 82 t ...

. Prior to the 2011–12 season, clubs could be relegated to the Kent County League, although in practice this rarely happened. The formation of the new Kent Invicta Football League for the 2011–12 season meant there was a Step 6 league allowing for more frequent promotion/relegation between the Southern Counties East League and the Kent Invicta League. After the merger with the latter league, the Southern Counties East League now has two divisions and is fed by the Kent County League.

List of champions

References

External links

* {{Football in England table cells 1 1966 establishments in England 9 Sports leagues established in 1966