National League Cup (football)
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History
The competition was formed for the inaugural season of what was then called the Alliance Premier League, in 1979–80 and existed for twenty-two seasons before being axed at the end of the 2000–01 season.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". It was briefly reformed for the 2004–05 season, in the form of the Conference Challenge Cup,[1] but following a poor response it was again agreed not to renew the competition for the next season. Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
With the transfer of sponsorship of the Conference to Blue Square for the start of the 2007–08 season two seasons later, the re-introduction of the competition was announced, scheduled to commence that year.[2] On 23 June 2009, the Conference League Cup's sponsor, Setanta's GB division, went into administration[3] and ceased broadcasting.[4]
In the 2024–25 season, the competition was revived as the 32-team National League Cup, with 16 National League clubs and 16 under-21 teams from Premier League 2.[5]
Format
The competition was a knockout tournament with pairings drawn at random – like the FA Cup there is a minimal form of seeding, in that members of the (higher-level) Conference National entered together at a later stage in the tournament, and the draw for each round took place after the completion of the round before. Script error: No such module "Unsubst".
The revived edition for 2024–25 consists of four groups of four National League and four Premier League 2 teams each, with each National League team playing four home games against the under-21 teams in their group. The top 2 teams from each group advance to the quarter-finals.[5]
Winners
Source:[7] (note: source does not list finals for 1986–87 to 1988–89)
References
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External links
- Setanta Shield results 2007–08 on BBC Sport
- Setanta Shield results 2008–09 on BBC Sport
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