The Southern Counties East Football League is an English

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

league established in 1966, which has teams based in

Kent Kent is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Essex across the Thames Estuary to the north, the Strait of Dover to the south-east, East Sussex to the south-west, Surrey to the west, and Gr ...

and Southeast

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. Its two divisions are allocated at Step 5 and Step 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 ...

(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 ...

). At its inception it was known as the Kent Premier League, and until 2013 as the Kent League. There is no direct connection between this league and a previous Kent League that existed from 1894 to 1959, despite many clubs having spells of membership in both leagues.

History

The current league was formed in 1966, from teams in and around the county of

, when the Thames & Medway Combination (which had its origins in 1896) was expanded and renamed the Kent Premier League. The league began with fourteen teams - five of the six members of the final Thames & Medway Combination season ( Deal Town Reserves, Orpington Athletic, Sittingbourne Reserves, Snowdown CW and Tonbridge Reserves) plus nine additional members ( Ashford Town Reserves, Bexley United Reserves, Canterbury City Reserves, Faversham Town, Folkestone Town Reserves, Margate Reserves, Ramsgate Athletic Reserves, Sheppey United Reserves, Tunbridge Wells Rangers Reserves). Additionally the teams contested a league cup competition. Two years later in 1968 the league was renamed the Kent Football League. During its first ten years many of the league's members were reserve sides of Southern League teams; in 1975 there was an unsuccessful proposal to exclude reserves teams from the primary division and instigate a second division. There followed several seasons by the league of discouragement of reserves teams until the 1978–79 season when a division for first teams only was established, titled Division One and reserve teams were shifted into a newly formed Division Two (which didn't exclude first teams); a Division Two knock-out cup competition was also initiated. Subsequently all divisions below the league's top division were known as the 'Reserves Section' and there was no automatic promotion/relegation from the Reserves Section into/from the top division. The league continued with this format until the 1998–1999 season when the divisions were renamed as the Premier Division and Division One (from Division One and Division Two respectively) - with floodlights being a requirement for clubs in the Premier Division. The following season Division One was split into two equal ranked regional (North and South) Divisions with a play-off match between the two winners to decide the Division One champion. After reverting to a single Division One for the 2000–01 season, for both the 2001–02 and 2002–03 seasons Division One was again split into North and South Divisions. Thereafter for the following nine seasons the Reserves section was divided into two merit based divisions, Division One and Division Two, with promotion/relegation between the two divisions; Division One initially comprised the higher ranked teams from the two regional Division One leagues with the new Division Two taking the remaining teams. For the 2012–2013 season, the final one the league was known as the Kent League, the competition reverted to a two division format comprising the Premier Division and Reserves Section Division One. In 2013 the league changed its name to the Southern Counties East League, to reflect that many of its member clubs no longer played within the county of Kent. and reverted to a single division for three seasons. At the end of the 2015–16 season, the league merged with the Kent Invicta League: the former single Southern Counties East League was designated as the Premier Division and the former Kent Invicta league became Division One.

Promotion and relegation

From 1982 the league became a designated feeder league to the Southern League and during the following twenty seasons nine Kent League clubs gained promotion. From 2004, following further rationalisation of the structure of

non-League football Non-League football describes association football, football leagues played outside the top leagues of a country. Usually, it describes leagues which are not fully professional. The term is primarily used for football in England, where it is ...

which saw the redrawing of the border between the

Southern Football League The Southern League is a football competition featuring semi-professional clubs from East Anglia, the South and Midlands of England, and South Wales. Together with the Isthmian League and the Northern Premier League it forms levels seven a ...

and the

Isthmian League The Isthmian League () is a regional Association football, football league covering Greater London, East of England, East and South East England, featuring mostly semi-professional clubs. Founded in 1905 by amateur clubs in the London area, th ...

, the Premier Division champions are promoted to the

. Prior to the 2011–12 season clubs could be relegated to the

Kent County League The Kent County Football League (known as the Kent County League) is a football competition based in Kent, England and adjacent area. The league was founded in 1922 as the Kent Amateur Football League and comprised Eastern and Western sections w ...

, although in practice this rarely happened, albeit clubs had moved in the opposite direction on being elected to the Kent League. The formation of the new

Kent Invicta Football 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 South ...

for the 2011–12 season created a league at Step 6 rather than Step 7 allowing for a less steep transition; clubs were regularly promoted from the Kent Invicta League but until it amalgamated with the SCEFL in 2015 no clubs were relegated to this step 6 league.

Sponsorship

Following their sponsorship of the Kent League Cup for the 1984–85 season, cable-making company Winstonlead extended their sponsorship to cover the League and this ran for 15 seasons between 1985 and 1999 during which period the competition was styled as the Winstonlead Kent League. They were succeeded by brewing company

Bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

as sponsors for three seasons during which the league was titled the Bass Brewers Kent League. In 2002 Kent based travel agency business Go Travel were the sponsor with the competition known as the Go Travel Kent League. The sponsor changed in 2005 to the Kent on Sunday newspaper and for a single season, 2005–06, the league was known as the Kentish Observer League. There followed two years without a title sponsor until 2008 when it was sponsored for two seasons by

Bulmers Bulmers cider is one of a number of brands owned by British cider maker H. P. Bulmer of Hereford, a Heineken subsidiary. It is one of the biggest selling British bottled cider brands in the UK with a number of variants including Bulmers Origin ...

and named the Bulmers Cider Kent League. For the 2010–11 season, training and consultancy business Safety Net Associates were the sponsors with the league known as the Safety Net Associates Kent League. Thereafter for two seasons commencing with the 2011–12 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 billed as the Kent Hurlimann Football League. After six seasons without a title sponsor, in November 2019 shipping company Sea Pioneer was named as sponsor with the competition known as the Sea Pioneer Southern Counties East Football League – this arrangement ceased with the interruption of football in March 2020 owing to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The league next announced a sponsorship agreement in June 2024 with Tunbridge Wells based property management firm Presence & Co., with the league to be known for the following two seasons as the Presence & Co. Southern Counties East Football League. The League's knock-out cup competitions have intermittently attracted separate sponsorship: from 2011 to 2018 the Challenge Cup was sponsored by sportswear brand

Macron Macron may refer to: People * Emmanuel Macron (born 1977), president of France since 2017 * Brigitte Macron (born 1953), French teacher, wife of Emmanuel Macron * Jean-Michel Macron (born 1950), French professor of neurology, father of Emmanuel ...

; the Reserves Section cup was known for the 2008–09 season as the HAUC (Highways Agency Utilities Committee) Reserves Cup and for the following two seasons to 2010–11 was sponsored by (infrastructure provider) Blu3.

Current structure and teams

Since 2016–17 the Premier Division is designated at Step 5 with Division One at Step 6 of the

(which equates to Levels 9–10 of the overall

). Clubs are able to move upwards to the Step 4 divisions of the

; teams are relegated into the

which is the feeder league into Division One. As of the 2024–25 season the two divisions comprise the following clubs

Premier Division

Bearsted Bearsted ( , ) is a village and civil parishes in England, civil parish with a railway station in mid-Kent, England, two miles (3.2 km) east of Maidstone town centre. Geography The village was historically concentrated around Church Lan ...

* Corinthian * Erith & Belvedere * Faversham Town *

Fisher Fisher is an archaic term for a fisherman, revived as gender-neutral. Fisher, Fishers or The Fisher may also refer to: Places Australia * Division of Fisher, an electoral district in the Australian House of Representatives, in Queensland *Elec ...

Glebe A glebe (, also known as church furlong, rectory manor or parson's close(s)) is an area of land within an ecclesiastical parish used to support a parish priest. The land may be owned by the church, or its profits may be reserved to the church. ...

* Hollands & Blair * Holmesdale *

Kennington Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between th ...

* Larkfield & New Hythe Wanderers * Lordswood * Lydd Town * Punjab United * Rusthall * Snodland Town * Stansfeld * Sutton Athletic *

Tunbridge Wells Royal Tunbridge Wells (formerly, until 1909, and still commonly Tunbridge Wells) is a town in Kent, England, southeast of Central London. It lies close to the border with East Sussex on the northern edge of the High Weald, whose sandstone ...

* VCD Athletic * Whitstable Town

First Division

* Bridon Ropes * Canterbury City * Clapton CFC *

Croydon Croydon is a large town in South London, England, south of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Croydon, a Districts of England, local government district of Greater London; it is one of the largest commercial districts in Greater Lond ...

* FC Elmstead * Faversham Strike Force * Forest Hill Park *

Greenways Greenway or Greenways may refer to: * Greenway (landscape), a linear park focused on a trail or bike path * Another term for bicycle boulevards in some jurisdictions * European Greenways Association, an association for sustainable transport Peopl ...

* Halls Athletic * Lewisham Borough * Meridian VP * Rochester United * Sheppey Sports (formerly K Sports) * Soul Tower Hamlets * Sporting Club Thamesmead * Staplehurst Monarchs *

Tooting Bec Tooting Bec is in the London Borough of Wandsworth, south London, England. History Tooting Bec appears in Domesday Book of 1086 as "Totinges". It was held partly by St Mary de Bec-Hellouin Abbey and partly by Westminster Abbey. Its domesday asse ...

* Welling Town

League and Cup winners

File:Cray Wanderers FC Kent League champions 1981.jpg, Cray Wanderers celebrate winning the title in 1981 File:7oaks.jpg, Maidstone United celebrate winning the title in 2006

References

External links

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