Football Conference   

A New Force In Football 

The Football Conference may technically be still outside of the Football League but does anyone really doubt that it is now League Three in but name? 

The 1970s was a revolutionary period for NonLeague Football with the abolition of amateur status in 1974 and the formation of the Football Conference, then called the Alliance Premier League, in 1979.

The Alliance was formed as a pseudo Fifth Division and was the first real attempt to form a national division beneath the Football league.  The aim been to try and provide the leading NonLeague clubs with a clear route to the full-time ranks of the Football League. 

The formation of the Alliance shook up the semi-professional game and eventually led not only to a radical overhaul of the national game, which still continues today of course, but also led to the Football League finally agreeing to automatic promotion and relegation between their bottom division and the Alliance.   

The end of the 1986/87 season saw Scarborough, champions of the renamed GM Vauxhall Conference, replace Lincoln City in the Football League. 

Unfortunately automatic promotion wasn’t available in the early years of the Alliance and none of the champion clubs before 1987 were granted Football league status under the voting system which was then in force.  The old pals act between league club chairmen invariably managing to maintain the status quo. 

The Alliance Leagues first season, 1979/80, saw twenty clubs taking part.  The clubs were drawn from the Northern Premier and Southern Leagues after the Isthmian refused permission for any of their clubs to join the league.   

It wasn’t until 1985 that the Isthmian League champions would be granted promotion though two clubs, Enfield and Dagenham, had jumped ship four years earlier with the former proving to be one of the new leagues top clubs during the early 1980s being winners twice and runners-up on another occasion. 

It was Cheshire side Altricham who were to prove to be the dominant club in the early years of the Alliance league with the Robins winning the championship in each of the first two seasons.   

Alty are still the only club to have won successive Conference titles though five others have lifted the crown on two separate occasions; Barnet (1991,2005); Enfield (1983, 1986); Kidderminster (1994,2000); Macclesfield (1995, 1997) and Maidstone United (1984, 1989).   

Only Altrincham and Enfield failing to make it to the Football league. 

Only two points separated Altrinham from runner-up Weymouth with the Robins 3-2 success over their rivals at Moss Lane in March 1980 helping to secure the inaugural title.   

That win enabled Alty to leapfrog their rivals to the top of the table and there they stayed.  Ironically the two clubs had met on the opening day of the season drawing 0-0 at the Recreation Ground.

And it was the Terras slow start to the campaign with only one win from their first seven matches which would ultimately prove to be too big a handicap to overcome despite a strong finish to the season. 

But Altrincham had the benefit of playing six of their final seven matches at home and finished the campaign by winning eight and drawing two of their last ten matches, a final day 2-0 win at Gravesend & Northfleet securing the championship with Weymouth only drawing at Boston United. 

Unfortunately Altrincham couldn’t beat the ballot box and despite winning the Alliance League again the following season the Robins still didn’t make it into the Football league.