English League One
Football League One is the second-highest division in the Football League and the third highest-ranking division in the English football league system.
The league’s official title is Coca Cola League 1 however it is often referred to simply as League One for short. The league has gone under various titles over the years that reflect the changes in English football. League One was begun in the 2004-2005 season but before that it was known as Football League Second Division.
League Structure:
The league is comprised of 24 teams. During the course of a season that runs from August to May each team plays every other team in the league twice, once at their home ground and once at their opponent’s ground. Points are awarded to the teams according to the outcome of each game. A win scores three points, a draw scores one point, but there are no points for a losing a game.
At the end of the season the teams are ranked in a League table according to the number of points that they scored from all of their games. The rankings are determined firstly by points scored, then goal difference, and finally goals scored. The table positions determine which teams are promoted to the Championship League and which are relegated to the lower League Two.
Promotion and Relegation:
Three teams at the end of each season are promoted to the Championship League and they replace the bottom three teams for that division. The top two teams in the table are promoted automatically while the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th position teams play a series of playoffs to determine who takes the third remaining promotion.
The four teams at the bottom of the table are relegated to Football League Two and their places are taken by the top three teams and the winner of the playoffs from that league.
League Structure Change:
From 1892 till 1992 the league was Football League Second Division and was the second highest league in English Football League.
All that changed in 1992 with the formation of the separate Premier League that took the top clubs from the First Division. In the shuffle that followed the Second Division was the second highest in the Football League although it was in fact now third placed in the English leagues.
The changes in the football league brought sponsorship and that led to branding issues. In 2004-2005 Football First Division was renamed the Championship League and as a result the Second Division was renamed as Football League One.
The original Second Division was formed in 1892 shortly after the establishment of the Football League in 1888. The league started with just 12 clubs most of which had previously played in the rival Football Alliance. At first there was no automatic promotion based on points for the top teams at the end of each season but rather they would play test matches against the lower teams from the First Division to try and win promotion. At the end of the 1892-93, Sheffield United beat Accrington to become the first team to win promotion to the First Division even though they had actually finished second in the league table.
The Test matches were dropped in 1898 after a scandal in which Burnley and Stoke planned to deliberately draw a test match that would give promotion to Burnley while preventing relegation for Stoke.
