The Football Combination was a football competition for the reserve teams of

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national id ...

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

clubs from

Southern England Southern England, or the South of England, also known as the South, is an area of England consisting of its southernmost part, with cultural, economic and political differences from the Midlands and the North. Officially, the area includes G ...

, the Midlands and

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; other clubs from the

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and those from the North playing in 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 cons ...

(it is not to be confused with

the Combination The Combination was a league during the early days of English football. It had two incarnations; the first ran only for the 1888–89 season for teams across the Northern England and the Midlands, and was wound up before completion. The secon ...

, a league for teams from

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

which existed at the turn of the 20th century).

History

The Combination was inaugurated in 1915 with twelve founder members:

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

Brentford Brentford is a suburban town in West London, England and part of the London Borough of Hounslow. It lies at the confluence of the River Brent and the Thames, west of Charing Cross. Its economy has diverse company headquarters buildings w ...

, Chelsea, Clapton Orient,

Croydon Common Croydon Common Football Club was an amateur and, later on, professional football club based in Croydon. History The team formed in 1897 as an amateur church team competing in local leagues. They turned professional in 1907, joining the Southern ...

Crystal Palace Crystal Palace may refer to: Places Canada * Crystal Palace Complex (Dieppe), a former amusement park now a shopping complex in Dieppe, New Brunswick * Crystal Palace Barracks, London, Ontario * Crystal Palace (Montreal), an exhibition buildin ...

Fulham Fulham () is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham in West London, England, southwest of Charing Cross. It lies on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea. The area faces Wandswo ...

Millwall Millwall is a district on the western and southern side of the Isle of Dogs, in east London, England, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It lies to the immediate south of Canary Wharf and Limehouse, north of Greenwich and Deptford, ea ...

Queens Park Rangers Queens Park Rangers Football Club, commonly abbreviated to QPR, is a professional football club based in Shepherd's Bush, West London, England, which compete in the . After a nomadic early existence, they have played home matches at Loftus ...

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...

Watford Watford () is a town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in Hertfordshire, England, 15 miles northwest of Central London, on the River Colne, Hertfordshire, River Colne. Initially a small market town, the Grand Junction Canal en ...

and

West Ham United West Ham United Football Club is an English professional football club that plays its home matches in Stratford, East London. The club competes in the Premier League, the top tier of English football. The club plays at the London Stadium ...

. First team matches were played until 1919, from when Reserve teams took over.

and

dropped out and were replaced with

Charlton Athletic Charlton Athletic Football Club is an English professional football club based in Charlton, south-east London, which compete in . Their home ground is The Valley, where the club have played since 1919. They have also played at The Mount in ...

and

Southend United Southend United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, England. As of the 2022–23 season, the team competes in the National League, the fifth tier of English football. Southend are known as ...

. Up to 1926 it was known as the London Combination, but from the 1926–27 season, ten clubs from outside the London area were admitted and the name became something of a misnomer. The new clubs were:

Brighton & Hove Albion Brighton & Hove Albion Football Club (), commonly referred to simply as Brighton, is an English professional football club based in the city of Brighton and Hove. They compete in the Premier League, the top tier of the English football league ...

, Cardiff City,

Coventry City Coventry City Football Club is a professional association football club based in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The team currently compete in the Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. The club is nicknamed the ...

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the Nation ...

Luton Town Luton Town Football Club () is a professional association football club based in the town of Luton, Bedfordshire, England, that competes in the EFL Championship, Championship, the second tier of the English football league system. Founded in 1 ...

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Reading Reading is the process of taking in the sense or meaning of Letter (alphabet), letters, symbols, etc., especially by Visual perception, sight or Somatosensory system, touch. For educators and researchers, reading is a multifaceted process invo ...

Southampton Southampton () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. It is located approximately south-west of London and west of Portsmouth. The city forms part of the South Hampshire, S ...

, Swansea Town and Watford (re-admitted). From the early 1930s to the outbreak of

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 ...

, 24 clubs were in membership, with

Aldershot Aldershot () is a town in Hampshire, England. It lies on heathland in the extreme northeast corner of the county, southwest of London. The area is administered by Rushmoor Borough Council. The town has a population of 37,131, while the Alde ...

Bournemouth & Boscombe Athletic AFC Bournemouth () is a professional association football club based in Kings Park, Boscombe, a suburb of Bournemouth, Dorset, England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest division of English club football. Formed in 1899 as Bo ...

, Bristol City, Northampton Town, Norwich City and

Swindon Town Swindon Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at the County Ground sin ...

joining at various times and others resigning. Following the resumption post-war in 1946, the number of clubs was increased to 32, the title changed to Football Combination and it was re-organised into two Sections A and B, with the winners playing-off for the Championship. A Combination Cup was also inaugurated to increase the number of fixtures played. A number of changes to the constitution took place in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1952–53 promotion and relegation were introduced, as the Combination was split into two Divisions, 1 and 2, with the top eight from Sections A and B of the previous season forming Division 1, and the bottom eight in each forming Division 2. This was short-lived and in 1955–56 a new format of one Division of 32 clubs was introduced, with teams playing 42 matches on a geographical basis. The Combination Cup was discontinued. Promotion and relegation returned for 1958–59 in two Divisions, based on the level of the first team of each club in the Football League, i.e. the top two Divisions of the Football League played in Division 1 of the Combination, and Division 3 and 4 teams were placed in Division 2. In 1961–62 things changed again and the Combination was re-organised into a Saturday Section and a Midweek Section, with a play-off for the title. For 1963–64 the Combination reverted to Divisions 1 and 2, with the Saturday Section becoming Division 1 and the Midweek Section becoming Division 2, and promotion/relegation was reintroduced. The decline in numbers led to the reintroduction of the Combination Cup in 1966–67, and by 1968–69 the Combination was down to one Division of 26 teams. For a time in the 1990s and early 2000s the league was sponsored by Avon Insurance, a subsidiary of

NFU Mutual NFU Mutual (NFUM) is a UK insurance composite, its directors and executives are directly answerable to customers/ policyholders (who own the business) for conduct of business as NFUM is and mutual and so has no shareholders to hold it to a ...

Demise

The Combination originally included

reserve team In sports, a reserve team is a team composed of players under contract to a club but who do not normally play in matches for the first team. Reserve teams often include back-up players from the first team, young players who need playing time to i ...

s of top League clubs within the region, but in 1999 the FA Premier Reserve League was founded. The reserve teams of the

FA Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

clubs and some First Division clubs joined that competition, reducing the size of the Combination (however, in 2006, Premier League clubs voted that only the 20 top-tier teams would be able to play in this league, which meant several well-established reserve sides moving to the Combination). The 2011–12 season was the last in the history of the Combination, with the introduction of the EPPP making the league surplus to requirements.

Champions

Other Divisions

Various other Divisions were utilised in the 1940s to 1960s to accommodate the number of member clubs.

Combination Cup

The Combination also operated a cup competition in various seasons to give the member clubs extra fixtures.

Winners

References

External links

Official page on the Football Association website

Official page on the Football League website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Football Combination 1915 establishments in the United Kingdom Reserve football leagues in England 2012 disestablishments in the United Kingdom Defunct football leagues in England