11 Facts About Isthmian League

Isthmian League is a regional men's football league covering Greater London, East and South East England, featuring mostly semi-professional clubs.

All the clubs supported the idea and the Isthmian League was born on 7 March 1905.

Isthmian League was most likely named after the ancient Isthmian Games, with the later Athenian League, Corinthian League, Delphian League, Spartan League, Parthenon League and Aetolian League all adding a Classical Greek flavour to amateur football competition.

In 1962 an 'all-star' team from the Isthmian League entered the 1962 Ugandan Independence Tournament, drawing both their games versus Kenya and Ghana.

However, the league still remained officious and refused to participate in the formation of the Alliance Premier League in 1979 and whilst two Isthmian clubs, Enfield and Dagenham, defected to the APL in 1981, it was not until 1985 that the Isthmian League champions were given a promotion place to the newly renamed Football Conference.

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In 2004, The Football Association pushed through a major restructuring of the entire national non-league National Isthmian League System, creating new regional divisions of the Football Conference feeding into the top, national, level.

In May 2017, The Football Association chose the Isthmian League to add a third regional division at Step 4 as part of further restructuring in the National League System, reducing all divisions at Step 4 to 20 teams.

Isthmian League was the first league to have sponsorship, having been selected by Rothmans, who sponsored the league from 1973 to 1977.

Isthmian League offered prize money for position in the league but money was deducted for bookings.

Under this partnership, Isthmian is marketed as one of the three Trident Leagues, alongside the Northern Premier and Southern leagues.

In practice, only the most ambitious non-Isthmian League sides put themselves forward for election, and success was uncommon .