The Central League is a football league for reserve teams, primarily from the Football League. For sponsorship purposes, it is branded as the Final Third Development League

The league was formed in 1911 and in its early years consisted of a mix of first teams and reserve teams. However, when the Football League Third Division North was created in 1921, all the first teams in the Central League became founder members.

Since then, the league has been for reserve teams only, and eventually expanded to include virtually every professional team in the Midlands and North of England (teams in the South play in the Football Combination). In recent years, the FA Premier Reserve League was created for reserve sides of FA Premier League teams, and so the Central League's membership has been reduced.

From the 2006/07 season the FA Premier Reserve League was restricted to the reserve sides of FA Premier League clubs. This meant that the reserve sides of Championship clubs rejoined the Central League.

The Central League (セントラル・リーグ, Sentoraru Rīgu) or Ce League (セリーグ, Se Rīgu) is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consists of six teams from around the country. Unlike the Pacific League, designated hitters are not used during Central League home games.

History

The Central League was founded in 1949 with eight teams: four holdovers from the previous Japanese Baseball League — the Chunichi Dragons, the Hanshin Tigers, the Yomiuri Giants, and the Shochiku Robins (formerly the Taiyō Robins) — and four new teams — the Hiroshima Carp, the Kokutetsu Swallows, the Nishi Nippon Pirates, and the Taiyō Whales.

The Nishi Nippon Pirates existed for one season — they placed sixth in 1950, and the following season merged with the also Fukuoka-based Nishitetsu Clippers (a member of the Pacific League) to form the Nishitetsu Lions, who joined the Pacific League. This brought the number of Central League teams down to an ungainly arrangement of seven.

The Central League was a professional baseball league that played for one season, 1888. The teams that played in the league were the Allentown Peanuts, Binghamton Crickets, Hazleton Pugilists, Jersey City Skeeters, Newark Trunkmakers, Scranton Miners and Wilkes-Barre Barons. The league champion was the Newark Trunkmakers, who went 83-23.

References

The Central League was a minor league baseball league that operated sporadically from 1903-1917, 1920-1922, 1926, 1928-1930, 1934, and 1948-1951. In 1926, the league merged mid-season with the Michigan State League and played under that name for the remainder of the season. The Central League later reformed in 1928.

Minor League Class History

Before the current minor league baseball classification system was introduced in 1963, minor leagues/teams were classfied from Class D up to Class Triple-A. The following is a list of the various classifications that the Central League had during its years of operation:

Former Teams

The following are former teams that made up the Central League.