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Isthmian League

Formed in 1905, The Isthmian League soon became the primary amateur league in the South of England.

Starting, as many early leagues did, in a small manner with six clubs, theleague had to survive a crisis after only two seasons, when three of the sixall left to join the Amateur Football Assocation. Luckily, replacementswere found, and a year later, the league expanded to 10 teams.

Since then, the league has usually had many more clubs wanting to join thanit has vacancies. For a long period, membership was by invitiation only,many ambitious clubs being unable to convince existing members that theydeserved a place at the expense of an existing club. The closed shop situationwas not really broken until the 1950s when Barking and Bromley joined. A fewnew clubs followed, including no less than 4 in 1963, mainly from theAthenian League.

In 1973 the league took a step many had been clamouring for for decades - asecond division was formed, again absorbing mainly Athenian League clubs.Since then, further expansion and eventual assimilation into the nationalpyramid system has seen the structure of the league form into a very strongleague of several divisions, the top division being a direct feeder to the Football Conference.

The amateur status of the league, maintained until the distinction betweenprofessional and amateur players was abolished in 1974, meant that the memberclubs all had the F.A. Amateur Cup to compete for, and very successful theywere too. On no less than 30 occasions did an Isthmian club pick up the Cup,Clapton leading the way with 5, closely followed by Dulwich Hamlet with 4.

After a swathe of re-organisations of non-league football, the clubs of the IsthmianLeague were split between the F.A. Trophy and the F.A. Vase. Dagenham in 1979-80,followed by Bishop's Stortford the year after were the first Isthmian clubsto take the Trophy at Wembley. Yeading are the only Isthmian club to lift theVase, while Southall, Oxford City and Berkhamsted Town have all been losing finalists.Since 2006, all Isthmian clubs play in the Trophy.

Although it's geographic coverage has shifted somewhat due to there-organisation of the non-league pyramid, the league is currently the highest regional league for a large swathe of theSouth East of England, covering clubs from the South Midlands to the South Coast, and from the New Forest eastwards to the North Sea.

Currently (as of 2023-24) the league consists of 4 divisions of up to 24 clubs each, a Premier Division andthree Division Ones split North, South Central and South East.

There is an excellent archive with huge amounts of detail about the Isthmian League from 1988 to date available at :www.isthmianarchive.co.uk

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