About the L&C
The L&C is first and foremost about the football.
Saturday afternoons from September to May, rain or shine, on football pitches dotted around Manchester and it’s surrounding towns, for well over a hundred years.
But there is more to the L&C than that as we also recognise the greater good that football brings to our communities, and that has been enshrined in the DNA of the league since our formation in 1909.
We offer competitive, recreational football for a wide range of abilities where it isn’t just the winning that matters, but also how we play the game and the other opportunities football brings: comradery, community, friendship, support, personal development.
The L&C was established as an amateur competition, when there was a very real distinction between amateur sport and the professional and semi-professional versions.
Whilst those differences have largely been dissolved, the L&C has always retained the spirit of the amateur game, playing hard, but playing fair, and playing simply for the pleasure in playing.
The L&C now offers the opportunity for clubs, new and established, to join a progressive competition where we aim to nurture and support our members through a range of flexible initiatives designed to mitigate against the issues facing clubs and team managers.
Oue league fees are unchanged since 2012 as we find new ways to keep our costs to a minimum, and we have recently launched an L&C Club Support and Development Fund to raise new money through sponsorships and grants, ALL of which will be reinvested into our clubs.
We operate six or seven divisions to provide manageable fixture lists, augmented by four cup competitions each serving two divisions. Our priority is to provide Saturday afternoon football from September to May, avoiding the inconvenience of midweek fixtures.
The L&C also provides financial support for clubs hiring third-party facilities in bad weather to enable football to continue, and some flexibility with fixture lists, including provision for ‘Free Saturday’ requests and fixture holidays.
The L&C has been a not-for-profit limited company since 1996 which devolves the responsibility for operating the competition to a League Management Committee.
The L&C is a participant competition in the FA Leagues Programme, as we look to put in place strategies to ensure the long-term sustainability of the league, and meet the future challenges fully prepared and equipped for the next hundred years.