BUCS Football League


The BUCS Football League is the association football league system of British Universities and Colleges Sport. It is the largest sport in UK higher education, with over 450 men's and women's teams competing in 100 leagues.

Competition format

The league follows the standard BUCS double pyramid, with two Premier divisions sitting above five regions. There are five divisions, one for each region, in the top regional tier, but at lower tiers the regions may be sub-divided into A, B, etc. divisions on a geographical basis. There are eight levels in the men's pyramid and five in the women's pyramid.
Divisions each consist of six teams, with the exception of the bottom division in each region. Teams in divisions with six or fewer teams play each other twice, home and away, while teams in divisions with seven or more teams play once, either home or away. All teams from the two Premier divisions enter the knockout Championship, teams in Tier 1 enter the Trophy, and teams in Tier 2 and below enter the Conference Cup. The bottom team from each Premier division and the top first teams from Tier 1 enter a promotion/relegation playoff at the end of the season; promotion and relegation between the regional tiers is automatic.

Former winners

Note: for consistency, current names are used throughout the table, e.g. Leeds Beckett rather than Leeds Met and Cardiff Met rather than UWIC.
SeasonChampionshipTrophyShieldPlateVase
2004-05Loughborough University 1stMMU Cheshire 2ndUWE Hartpury 1stUniversity of Sussex 1stUniversity of Strathclyde 2nd
2005-06Loughborough University 1stUWE Hartpury 1stDe Montfort University, Bedford 1stLeeds Metropolitan Carnegie 2nd
2006-07UWE Hartpury 1stUniversity of Manchester 1stUniversity of Hull 1stBournemouth University 1stNorthumbria University 3rd
2007-08UWE Hartpury 1stUniversity of Bath 2ndUniversity of Manchester 1stUniversity of Central Lancashire 1stUniversity of Nottingham 4th