If you didn’t know much about women’s football in England, you’d probably be forgiven for thinking that it all seemed a little bit confusing.
On first glance, for example, there seem to be two WSLs as well as two National Leagues, so knowing exactly how things work isn’t something that is immediately clear.
In reality, there is the Women’s Super League 1 and the Women’s Super League 2, both of which you can read more about elsewhere, whilst the National League is split into two different divisions based on the geographical location of the teams that play in them.
The question is, how do they both fit into the overall pyramid?
History of the Divisions
It is fair to say that the history of the Women’s National League is a complicated one. The story begins not with the Football Association but with its predecessor in women’s football governance, the Women’s Football Association.
The Women’s National League was inaugurated in the 1991-1992 season by the WFA, thanks to a grant from the Sports Council and from the outset it consisted of a National Premier Division and two lower divisions. These were the Northern Division and the Southern Divisions, whose winners each season were promoted to the top-flight.
The Northern Division’s inaugural season commenced on the 15th of September 1991, featuring eight teams, which were as follows:
- Bronte FC
- Sheffield Wednesday Ladies
- Davies Argyle
- Wolverhampton Wanderers Ladies
- Spondon
- Sunderland Ladies
- Cowgate Kestrels
- Villa Aztecs
It was Bronte FC who took the first title, with an impressive record of twelve wins, a draw, and a single defeat, earning promotion to the top-flight. From the very beginning of the league, the concept was regional, with a national tier at the summit and the North and South Divisions operating in parallel beneath it, feeding clubs upward through promotion. In 1994, control was handed to the Football Association, and the name of what was then the top-flight changed to become the FA Women’s Premier League. The league continued to consist of the National Division, England’s top-flight until 2010, with the Northern and Southern Premier Divisions forming the second tier.
The bottom two teams of the National Division were relegated into whichever league made the most sense of them geographically, whilst the winners of the Northern and Southern Divisions were promoted. This transfer of governance was significant as the FA’s involvement brought greater institutional weight and resources, whilst the structure of the pyramid remained essentially intact and saw a single national division at the top, alongside North and South sitting just below as joint second tiers. Throughout its first twenty years, women’s football was almost entirely amateur but offered a competitive outlet for female footballers.
The biggest shift in the history of women’s football came with the creation of the Women’s Super League, which saw the National Division become the second tier, whilst the Northern and Southern Divisions became the third. In effect, the creation of a new elite professional division above everything else pushed the entire pyramid down a level and the National League North and National League South, which had been second-tier leagues for two decades, were now operating at tier three. The National Division was replaced in 2013 by the Championship, with the Northern and Southern Divisions continuing in their roles as the third tier.
Further confusion came into play for the 2014-2015 season, thanks to the fact that the Women’s Premier League incorporated the fourth-tier Combination Leagues as the Premier League’s Division One, with Division One North and Division One Midlands feeding into the Northern Division. Promotion to the second tier was also reintroduced, with the winners of the Northern and Southern Divisions playing each other in a single play-off match at a neutral venue, which resulted in the winner becoming the overall Women’s Premier League champion and promoted to WSL 2. This was a crucial development for the regional leagues.The addition of Division One feeders to the Northern and Southern Divisions gave those two leagues a proper base of clubs flowing up from below and connected the entire pyramid from grassroots to elite in a way that had not previously existed.
In 2018, the FA Women’s Premier League was renamed the Women’s National League, restoring the name used in the leagues’ early years. Prior to the 2018-2019 campaign, the league was renamed as the FA Women’s National League North, part of a complete rebrand of the women’s pyramid, and Blackburn Rovers won the inaugural edition of the rebranded league.
The rebrand was partly cosmetic, given the fact that the structure did not change dramatically, but it was symbolic, reconnecting the competition to its 1991 roots whilst signalling a fresh chapter in the professionalising game. Beginning with the 2023-2024 season, it was decided that both the Northern and Southern Division champions would be automatically promoted to the Championship, ending the era of the single play-off match between the two divisional winners.
This was an upgrade in status for both leagues, giving them a direct and guaranteed route into the second tier for the champions of each.
Structure: Promotion and Relegation
For the 2025-2026 season, 12 teams competed in each of the two divisions, with the team that finishes top of each league being automatically promoted into the Women’s Super League 2.
The team that finishes second in the National League North then enters a play-off with the team that finished second in the National League South in order to decide which of them will be promoted into the WSL 2. The bottom two teams are automatically relegated into the FA Women’s National League Division One.
Which teams play in which division is decided according to the geography of where the team is located.
Whilst teams such as Plymouth Argyle and AFC Wimbledon are very obviously based in the south and sides like Hull City and Liverpool Feds are clearly northern, Midlands-based sides will be placed in either the National League North or the National League South depending on several factors. In terms of the league itself, each team will play the others once home and once away to decide the order.