Kent League
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Kent League is an English football league in Kent and south east London.
The league was started in 1966 as the Kent Premier League (changing to the current title 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.
The league has three divisions: the Premier Division, First Division and Second Division. Only the Premier Division features first teams; the First and Second Divisions are for the reserve teams of Premier Division clubs and a number of other clubs in Kent. The Premier Division is now at Step 5 of the National League System (which equates to Level 9 of the overall English football league system), with clubs able to move upwards to the Step 4 divisions of the Isthmian League and/or the Southern League. Conversely, clubs can get relegated to the Kent County League, although in practice this has not happened in recent years.
For the 2005-06 season the league was sponsored by the Kentish Observer newspaper, but in June 2006 it was announced that this sponsorship deal had ended and a new one would be sought.
A previous Kent League existed from 1894 to 1959, but despite many of the same clubs having spells in membership, there is no direct connection between the two competitions.
In 2006 The Football Association asked the Kent League and the Essex Senior Football League to consider a possible future merger.
