| ReadingPalace |
I've not seen this mentioned before, but I can't be the first person to bring it up...
Palace won the inaugural Division 3 championship in 1921. The following season, more teams were added to the league, thus splitting Division 3 into separate North and South zones until the creation of Division 4 in 1958.
What I want to know is, between 1922 and 1958, was there a regular end-of-season play off between the North and South winners to decide the overall Division 3 Champions?
If not, then surely we can claim to have held the Division 3 title for some 37 years! An interesting trivia/pub bore fact, if nothing else. |
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| CP Satellite |
Basically, all the clubs from the Southern League in the 1919/20 season became the new Third Division. Many of the clubs, like Palace, had been there since the 1900's.
Tottenham moved from the Southern League to the Football League in 1908 - Palace actually went to White Hart Lane in 1907 and beat Spurs in a Southern League match at first team level - West Ham only joined the Football League in 1918 and Palace were able to beat them home and away on a few occasions in the Southern League.
The Northern clubs were always going to have their own Third Divison, it just took a further year to organise and there were 'representative' matches between the 'South' & the 'North' - but these were sides selected from different clubs, rather than a club v club match.
It's correct to say that Palace were the original Third Division Champions - although most historians still have it as the Third Division (South). The Shield that Palace won was used as the Third Division South trophy right up to 1957 as far as I can tell. |
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| telodaja |
| There wasn't a play off both North & South both Champions were promoted to Div 2. 2 teams came down and one went into South one into North. I assume the League hoped that each year there would be a Northern & Southern team in the bottom two of Div 2. When this did not happen they moved a team from one div 3 to the the other. I think from memory Port Vale & Mansfield played in both North & South divisions |
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| StevePlus |
Quite a number of clubs moved between the old South and North divisions, including Walsall, Notts County and Shewsbury. One oddity was Grimsby, who were thrown out of Divison 2 in 1920, to be replaced by Cardiff from the Southern League. The new Third Division was formed immediately afterwards from Southern League clubs, who of course were now one short - so Grimbsy spent one season in Division One South.
If 3S had been formed just before the first world war, instead of afterwards, Croydon Common would have been in it, playing at Selhurst. |
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| CP Satellite |
Apparenty, there was no 'Northern League' in 1920. This was probably why it took a further year to select clubs from leagues such as the North Eastern, the Lancashire Combination, the Birmingham and District, the Midland, and the Central League.
It's probably not been pointed out anywhere before - Palace won the first Division Three 'Shield' in 1921 and the last winners of that trophy in 1957 were...........................Br*ght*n! |
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