The Spartan South Midlands Football League is an English football league covering Hertfordshire, northwestern Greater London, central Buckinghamshire and southern Bedfordshire. It is a feeder to the Southern Football League or the Isthmian League, and consists of five divisions – three for first teams (Premier Division, Division One and Division Two), and two for reserve teams (Reserve Division One and Reserve Division Two).
The league was formed in 1997 by the merger of the London Spartan League and the South Midlands League. It is also known as the Molten Spartan South Midlands Football League after its sponsors.
The Premier Division is at step 5 (or level 9) of the National League System, divisions One and Two at step 6/level 10 and step 7/level 11 of the National League System respectively. The reserve divisions are not part of the National League system.
Famous quotes containing the words spartan, south, midlands, football and/or league:
“My hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,
So flewed, so sanded; and their heads are hung
With ears that sweep away the morning dew;
Crook-kneed, and dewlapped like Thessalian bulls;
Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth like bells,
Each under each.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“... while the South is hardly Christ-centered, it is most certainly Christ-haunted.”
—Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964)
“Sunday night meant, in the dark, wintry, rainy Midlands ... anywhere where two creatures might stand and squeeze together and spoon.... Spooning was a fine art, whereas kissing and cuddling are calf-processes.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“People stress the violence. That’s the smallest part of it. Football is brutal only from a distance. In the middle of it there’s a calm, a tranquility. The players accept pain. There’s a sense of order even at the end of a running play with bodies stewn everywhere. When the systems interlock, there’s a satisfaction to the game that can’t be duplicated. There’s a harmony.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“I am not impressed by the Ivy League establishments. Of course they graduate the best—it’s all they’ll take, leaving to others the problem of educating the country. They will give you an education the way the banks will give you money—provided you can prove to their satisfaction that you don’t need it.”
—Peter De Vries (b. 1910)