Formed in 1920 as the
Sussex County Football League, started with just one division of 12 teams. By the end of the 1929–30 season, six of the original twelve teams remained, having played in every campaign since the competition began. The league saw regular changes in members between 1921 and 1928 and saw 23 clubs taking part. The league closed down during the Second World War and the league ran two competition sections in the 1945–46 season, an Eastern division with eight teams and a Western division with 9 teams. The winners of each competition played in a play-off for a champion. A normal single league practice resumed in 1946 with 14 clubs now playing. A new division was created in 1952 when Division Two was instituted. Division One remained with 14 teams and Division Two with 12 teams. By 1958 the two leagues had 16 teams each. The
1962–63 season was abandoned due to the atrocious
weather conditions, with some clubs playing over 20 games and others with only 13 or 14 games played; an emergency competition was played in a group stage style format with knock-out stages to the final. The 1970s saw the league membership decline. In 1983 a third division was added for intermediate level teams looking for an easy entry into the football league pyramid system, and a 3-points-for-a-win system was introduced. Divisions One and Two remained at 16 teams each, Division Three started with 13 teams, increasing to 15 two seasons later. Some long term clubs experienced harder times and dropped into Division Two. A "Two Up Two Down" system of promotion and relegation was applied throughout the period but was occasionally affected by departures from the league itself. Division One increased to 18 teams for the 1988–89 season and 20 teams for the 1993–94 season, along with Division One increasing to 18 teams in the same season. Division Three increased to 16 teams in 2000. The league changed its name to the Southern Combination Football League for the start of the 2015–16 season, keeping the acronym
SCFL also attracting teams just across the Sussex border when
the Football Association (FA) moved teams across leagues. The divisions were renamed at this time to Premier Division, Division One and Division Two, with the last keeping its intermediate status. Also, for the 2015–16 season the league added two U21s divisions, one in the East, and one in the West, consisting of 7 teams each, which lasted until the end of the 2017–18 season and replaced by two Under–23 divisions (East and West), and three Under–18 divisions (East, Central and West). The
Sin Bin rule was introduced for the
2019–20 season to reduce dissent between the players, also during the same season the coronavirus (
COVID-19) pandemic halted all sporting events nationwide; the leagues and the Football Association agreed to end the season early and expunge all results, with no promotion or relegation between the leagues. The league season was abandoned for a third time after the FA Alliance and Leagues committees announced that the
2020–21 would be curtailed, subject to ratification by The FA Council, with immediate effect. The first team divisions – Premier, One and Two, sit at Steps 5 and 6, and level 11, formerly Step 7, of the
English football league system, below the lower divisions of the
Isthmian League and the
Southern League. The reserve divisions are not part of the league system. ==Sponsorship==