# National Conference League

The National Conference League (NCL) comprises the five levels of the British rugby league system at the top end of the amateur pyramid below the professional League One. It comes under the jurisdiction of the Rugby Football League (RFL). The NCL has promotion and relegation between the Premier Division and Division Three; there is no promotion or relegation between the Conference League South, regional leagues or promotion to League One without an application to the RFL.

## System

The NCL consists of five divisions. Teams can be promoted and relegated through the top four divisions (Premier, One, Two and Three). There is no promotion and relegation between Division Three and the Southern Conference League or the regional leagues. Clubs outside the NCL can apply to join Division Three.
Although the NCL sits below League One, teams are not promoted and relegated between the amateur leagues and the professional game, although any club from NCL to the regional leagues can apply to join League One.
In each division clubs play each other twice, once at their home stadium and once at their opponents. Teams receive two points for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. Teams are ranked by competition points, points difference (points scored less points conceded), and points scored.
At the end of the season in the Premier Division, the top six teams enter the play-offs with the winner being crowned NCL champions. The bottom three clubs are relegated to Division One.
For Divisions One, Two and Three, the top two clubs are promoted from their respective divisions while teams finishing between 3rd and 6th play-off for the final promotion place. With the exception of Division Three, the bottom three clubs are relegated.
For the Southern Conference League, clubs play each other once home and away. At the end of the season, the top four teams play-off to determine the champions. No club is promoted or relegated.
| Level | League(s)/Division(s) | League(s)/Division(s) | League(s)/Division(s) | League(s)/Division(s) | League(s)/Division(s) | League(s)/Division(s) |
| 1 | Premier Division 12 clubs – 3 relegations | Premier Division 12 clubs – 3 relegations | Premier Division 12 clubs – 3 relegations | Premier Division 12 clubs – 3 relegations | Premier Division 12 clubs – 3 relegations | Premier Division 12 clubs – 3 relegations |
| 2 | Division One 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division One 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division One 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division One 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division One 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division One 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations |
| 3 | Division Two 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division Two 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division Two 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division Two 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division Two 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations | Division Two 12 clubs – 3 promotions, 3 relegations |
| 4 | Division Three 13 clubs – 3 promotions, bottom 2 clubs seek re-election | Division Three 13 clubs – 3 promotions, bottom 2 clubs seek re-election | Division Three 13 clubs – 3 promotions, bottom 2 clubs seek re-election | Division Three 13 clubs – 3 promotions, bottom 2 clubs seek re-election | Division Three 13 clubs – 3 promotions, bottom 2 clubs seek re-election | Division Three 13 clubs – 3 promotions, bottom 2 clubs seek re-election |
| 4 | Southern Conference League 8 clubs – 0 promotions, 0 relegation | Southern Conference League 8 clubs – 0 promotions, 0 relegation | Southern Conference League 8 clubs – 0 promotions, 0 relegation | Southern Conference League 8 clubs – 0 promotions, 0 relegation | Southern Conference League 8 clubs – 0 promotions, 0 relegation | Southern Conference League 8 clubs – 0 promotions, 0 relegation |

## History

In the early days, rugby league had an established structure outside of the professional leagues with county-wide competitions. This decayed into local district leagues usually only featuring teams from one or two towns with no input from the professional game. This eventually saw the number of amateur rugby league clubs reduce to 150 in the early 1970s.
Against this background, the British Amateur Rugby League Association was formed in 1973. One of its first acts was to merge most of the district leagues into three regional leagues: the Yorkshire League, the Pennine League and the North Western Counties League. For geographical reasons, the Hull League, the Cumberland League, the Barrow League and the London League were left as they were.
This allowed clubs to play at more appropriate standards as there were more divisions, and this factor - along with the improved governance of BARLA - saw the standard and numbers of clubs rise quickly. However, while there was a National Cup, the best amateur clubs were still divided between six leagues and thus the desire for an amateur National League arose.
The BARLA National League was formed in 1986. It received 27 applications including five from the Barrow area, and more unusually, one from a London club, South London Warriors.
In the end the league settled on 10 members, all from the northern strongholds of the game. These were four clubs from Yorkshire: Dudley Hill, Milford Marlins, Heworth and West Hull; four clubs from Lancashire: Pilkington Recs, Wigan St Patrick's, Woolston Rovers and Leigh Miners' Welfare; and two clubs from Cumbria: Egremont Rangers and Millom. These ten clubs were to be the members for each of the first three seasons.
The National League soon proved popular. For the 1989/90 season, the top flight was extended to 12 teams to include Lock Lane and Mayfield. However, this modest expansion wasn't enough and the 1989/90 season also saw the addition of a 10-team second division (to expand to 12 teams after one season).
The ten inaugural members of the second division were: Saddleworth Rangers, Leigh East, British Aerospace, Barrow Island, Askam, Knottingley, Redhill, Dewsbury Celtic, Shaw Cross Sharks and East Leeds. This expansion proved successful with Leigh East becoming the first non-founder members to win the league, in the 1990/91 season.
In 1993, the RFL wanted to contract the professional ranks from 35 to 32 teams. However, their initial plan to place the excluded teams in the Alliance (reserve grade) faced a legal challenge so they needed an alternative competition for them. The RFL thus proposed a league to bridge the gap between the professional and amateur leagues to feature the three demoted semi-pro clubs plus Hemel Hempstead (who already played in the Alliance as a semi-pro club) and eight BARLA clubs.
However, BARLA wanted all National League clubs to be in any such league and since the RFL were in a tough legal position they were prepared to compromise with BARLA and thus the three division NCL was born. Other concessions included an increase in the BARLA representation in the Challenge Cup from two clubs to 64 and allowing the NCL champions to apply to replace the bottom team in the pro leagues.
The latter concession soon disappeared as the pro leagues moved to summer and the National Conference League did not want to move. Also, Woolston Rovers' application to replace Highfield was voted out (the one club elected to the league from the NCL being Chorley Borough who were themselves a former semi-pro league club). The NCL soon expanded all divisions to 14 teams, though on occasions it has struggled to reach full complement of members, and lost all the remaining semi-pro clubs within three seasons.
After the switch of the pro game to summer, the NCL became solely a BARLA league, despite being temporarily expelled from BARLA in 2002. Initially, only three NCL teams joined National League Three (intended to bridge the gap between the pro and amateur games) but this changed in 2008 when the NCL downgraded the league's BARLA membership from full to associate. In 2009 the NCL introduced a summer competition for clubs wanting to play year round as a test for a more permanent switch to summer which came in 2012.
From 2012 the Conference played in summer, as tier 3 of the new pyramid, and the initial season saw two former Rugby League Conference National Division clubs admitted (Dewsbury Celtic and Featherstone Lions) with others expected to join from 2013. For one season only the Rugby League Conference National Division ran as Conference division three with no automatic promotion to division two, but after this, all northern clubs were required to meet full Conference criteria to play in tier 3. The RFL also had ambitions of a Conference South which would leave the former NCL as Conference North. From 2013, the limit on member clubs was raised from 42 to 56 and saw an increase to four divisions.

## Sources

* - former National Conference League official website
* https://www.rugby-league.com/leagues__competitions/national_conference_league - National Conference League official website
* The Times newspaper archives (results section 1986 onwards plus several articles from 1986 and 1993 about the formation of the National League and National Conference League respectively)