Country | England |
---|---|
Founded | 1896 |
Level on pyramid | 11 |
Promotion to | East Midlands Counties Football League |
Domestic cup(s) |
FA Cup FA Vase |
The Leicestershire Senior League (currently sponsored by Everards Brewery) is a football competition based in Leicestershire, England.
The league was formed in 1896, had a two-year hiatus between 1901 and 1903, and has run continuously since 1903 apart from during the two world wars and a four-year spell in the 1930s. A second division was added in 1948.
The longest serving team in the league was Holwell Sports, who completed 76 seasons in the league, 60 of them in the top division but left in 2008 to join the new East Midlands Counties Football League.
The league currently has two divisions, the Premier Division and Division One, and is a feeder to the East Midlands Counties Football League. The Football Association classifies the Leicestershire Senior League Premier Division as Step 7, due to the quality of football played and the standard of the grounds on which teams play. The First Division is therefore not part of the NLS, meaning that clubs in that division are not eligible to take part in the FA Vase. An application to re-grade the Premier Division to Step 6 was turned down by the FA in 2006.
For the 2008–09 season, eight of the leading sides left the league to join forces with eight clubs from the Central Midlands League to form a new league, the East Midlands Counties Football League, at Step 6 of the National League System.
The champions of the league's top division since its creation have been as follows:
The member clubs in the 2016–17 season are as follows: