2004–06: Three Conference League Divisions In 2004, the Football League renamed Football League Division Three to Football League Two as part of a rebranding exercise. A new level was added immediately below the Football Conference, consisting of two divisions, Conference North and Conference South. The clubs for these new divisions were drawn equally from the three feeder leagues. The existing Conference division at Step 1 was renamed Conference National. As part of the restructuring, the Isthmian League's two First Divisions were merged, and the boundary between the Southern League and the Isthmian League was redrawn, with 12 clubs transferring from the Southern to the Isthmian, and 27 moving in the opposite direction. To make up the numbers at Step 4, no clubs were relegated and a total of 20 clubs were promoted from the Step 5 feeder leagues.
2006–07: Three Isthmian League Divisions For the 2006–07 season, the Isthmian League First Division was split back out into North and South sections again to reduce travel costs, in the wake of
Hastings United's complaints over these costs in 1998, causing them to drop out of the Southern league when their application to transfer to the Isthmian was denied. The Southern League Division Ones were also rearranged slightly, and renamed as Midlands and South & West. Plans to split the Northern Premier League First Division in the same way were put on hold due to a lack of suitable clubs. Each of the divisions at Steps 2–4 had a quota of 22 clubs, although the Northern Premier League First Division ran with 24 clubs for this season as part of the future expansion plans. The Conference National was expanded to 24 clubs, the same as the Football League's three divisions. A total of 30 clubs were promoted from Step 5 to Step 4, including 4 from the Isthmian League Second Division. The division was then disbanded, with its remaining clubs distributed across the other Step 5 leagues in the South East. It was planned to reduce the number of divisions at that level from 15 to 12, but there was no consensus on how this should be achieved, so 2006–07 ran with fourteen Step 5 divisions, each with between 18 and 22 clubs. It was hoped that the restructuring would improve the lower levels of the system in a number of ways. There would be less travelling for the Level 8 clubs as there would be five divisions, not four. This became of particular benefit to Midlands-based clubs who predominantly competed in the Southern League Division One Midlands, rather than being split between the geographically larger, older divisions. There should also be less overlapping at Level 9. Lower down the pyramid, the
Liverpool County Combination merged with the
I Zingari League to form the
Liverpool County Premier League, while the
Somerset County League split its lower levels from Division Two and Division Three to Division Two East and Division Two West. The East Cornwall Premier League changed its name to the
East Cornwall League, divided into two divisions (Premier Division and Division One). In a purely cosmetic change, the Bedford & District League became the
Bedfordshire League.
2007–09: Three NPL Divisions For the 2007–08 season, the Conference National was renamed Conference Premier and the Northern Premier League Division One was split into two, completing the plan of six divisions at Step 4. They were split along a north–south basis. Because each division only had 18 clubs initially, they played an unusual format, with each division being split into East and West sections. Each club played all the others in its division home and away, and also played all the others in its section a third time, either home
or away. This gave each club 42 games (rather than the 34 they would have with just a straight round-robin). The extra games are spread across the season. Further down, the
South Western League and the
Devon County League merged to form the
South West Peninsula League. It has a Premier Division at Step 6, and Division One East and Division One West at Step 7. The new league fed directly into the Premier Division of the
Western League, in parallel with the Western League Division One. It was hoped that the new division would encourage more clubs from the West Country to move up the pyramid, without having to jump directly from local Cornwall and West Devon leagues to the Western League (which can mean journeys of over 200 miles each way). Further down still, Step 7's
Wessex League Division Two was disbanded and its clubs returned to local leagues, including the new Hampshire Premier Football League, which would run alongside the now-defunct
Hampshire League. On 16 May 2008, the FA Leagues Committee added the
East Midlands Counties League at Step 6, taking clubs from the
Central Midlands League and the
Leicestershire Senior League (both at Step 7 at the time). It was to run parallel to the
Northern Counties League Division One, which was re-centred on Yorkshire, with both feeding into the
Northern Counties League Premier Division. Both the Central Midlands League and the Leicestershire Senior League retained their current formats and their current Step 7 status for their highest divisions. The possible addition of
Surrey Elite Intermediate League at Step 7 was also announced. This included some of the best clubs from the existing Intermediate leagues in the county, some clubs dropping down from the
Combined Counties League Division One, and some teams from areas adjacent to the county boundary. The FA refused to give this new league the expected Step 7 status but pledged to keep the matter under review. The
Hampshire Premier League was also officially named as a Step 7 league from 2008.
2009–15 In 2009, Southern League Division One Midlands was renamed Division One Central. For the 2011–12 season, the
Kent Invicta Football League was created at Step 6 to bridge the gap between the
Kent League at Step 5 and the
Kent County League at Step 7. The FA hoped to reduce the number of Step 5 leagues to twelve by the 2013–14 season, with the number of clubs in each league being gradually reduced to 22 through adjustments to the number of relegation places. This change never materialised. A series of changes were introduced for the 2013–14 season to ensure that each Step 5 league had the opportunity to promote a team to Step 4. Since there were 14 Step 5 leagues and 6 Step 4 leagues, a simple promotion/relegation system would not work. All three Step 3 leagues (Northern Premier League Premier, Southern Premier, Isthmian Premier) were expanded from 22 to 24 teams. The two Isthmian leagues at Step 4 (Division One North, Division One South) were expanded from 22 to 24 teams and the number of relegated sides in both divisions increased from two to three. The remaining four Step 4 leagues would still each have 22 teams and two relegation spots. The Isthmian League was chosen for expansion due to the greater number of clubs competing in its geographical area at Step 5 and to ensure there were 14 relegation places at Step 4, in line with the 14 Step 5 divisions. At Step 5, teams finishing as low as third at Step 5 could be promoted, as long as they applied for promotion and met the ground grading criteria, but only one team from each Step 5 division could be promoted each season, the highest placed eligible club. For changes for the 2013–14 season to take place, a "16-up, 6-down" system applied for the 2012–13 season only, whereby 16 teams from Step 5 were promoted (rather than 14) and only six teams from Step 4 were relegated (rather than 12). In 2013, the Kent League was renamed Southern Counties East League, while the Midland Alliance and Midland Combination merged to become the new Midland League at Step 5. ==2015 onwards: National League==