British Columbia Football League
British Columbia's professionalised association football competition is the British Columbia Football League (BCFL).
Structure
The BCFL is organised in three Dominion-wide tiers called Divisions One, Two, and Three respectively, with Division Three subdivided into Groups A and B; this is the realm of professional football in BC.
The Division One champion qualifies for the following season's CONCACAF Champions League.
Since 1999, each division's formal name contains the name of the primary sponsor, signed for five-year terms; since the 2020 season, the names are BC Football League Rover-Leyland Division One, BC Football League PetroBC Division Two, BC Football League Inter-Dominion Air Lines Division Three A, and BC Football League Domforco Division Three B.
Beneath the League are five further tiers, collectively referred to as non-league, down to the city level; these are made up primarily of semi-professional and amateur clubs, but there are a number of professional sides in the fourth tier. There are four regional leagues in the fourth tier divided by geographic region: the Northwest Football Championship, the Northeast Football Championship, the Southwest Football Championship, and the Southeast Football Championship. League play in the fourth tier is divided into two stages. The first stage is regular league competition, with the first-placed finisher becoming the regional champion. The top four finishers in each regional competition enter a round-robin Division Three Qualification Competition, held at a neutral venue with each team playing the others once; the top four finishers in this competition earn direct promotion into Division Three. Starting with the 1974 season, the remaining twelve teams get a second opportunity for promotion via the Division Three Relegation Playoffs. The first round of this sees the twelve reduced to six, who are joined by the 14th-placed finisher in each group of Division Three; the winners of the semi-finals of this single-elimination playoff are promoted to (or remain in) Division Three.
1929 to 1973
The three-tier structure of professional football in BC has been in place since the inaugural season of the BCFL in 1929.
Professional sporting competitions were suspended in BC for the duration of the Pacific War from 1942 through 1945. The clubs of Greater Vancouver organised an unofficial competition in 1942 amongst themselves which they named the Lower Mainland Football League. Similar unofficial competitions were established elsewhere in the country, of which the most notable were the Nechako Football League, the Okanagan Football League, and the South Island Football League; elsewhere, smaller competitions were held within towns or between neighbouring villages.
From the beginning until the end of the 1973 season, Division One comprised twelve teams with each playing the rest three times during the season, whilst Divisions Two and Three contained 16 teams each playing two matches against the others. At the end of the season, the bottom two finishers in Division One were relegated to Division Two, and were replaced by the two top finishers from Division Two; similarly, the bottom three of Division Two were relegated to Division Three, replaced by the top three Division Three clubs. The last four in Division Three were relegated into the regional leagues.
By the early 1970s, the BCFL was growing
History
The BCFL was established in its current form in 1929; prior to that, there were two competitions, one on Vancouver Island (established in 1899) and one on the Mainland (established in 1918 through the merger of three regional competitions - the Kootenay Football League, the Northern BC Football Association, and the Southern Football League), with the champion of each playing a home-and-away series to decide the national champion. The oldest football competition in BC still taking place is the British Columbia FA Cup, established in 1891 and modelled on the British (specifically, English) competition of the same name. After the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941, play was suspended for the duration of the conflict, resuming in 1946 and continuing uninterrupted since then.
Divisional champions since 1929
Championships by club, Division One
| Club | Titles | Winning seasons |
|---|---|---|
| Royal City | 19 | 1931, 1932, 1933, 1938, 1939, 1952, 1959, 1975, 1979, 1982, 1983, 2002, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2018, 2020 |
| Vancouver City | 12 | 1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1970, 1971, 1973, 1974, 1976, 2005, 2006 |
| Port Alberni Athletic | 10 | 1935, 1980, 1986, 1987, 1989, 1990, 1991, 1993, 1994, 2017 |
| Fort George | 8 | 1951, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1964, 1966, 1967 |
| Wellington | 8 | 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2007, 2013, 2014 |
| Grand Forks | 4 | 2000, 2003, 2004, 2015 |
| Kitimat & Kemano United (as Kitimat City FC before 1960) |
4 | 1946, 1949, 1950, 1956 |
| Nanaimo Thistle | 4 | 1968, 1969, 1972, 1985 |
| Quesnel United | 3 | 1941, 1948, 1960 |
| Alberni Town | 2 | 1978, 1981 |
| Cranbrook North Side | 2 | 1936, 1937 |
| Llangefni | 2 | 1998, 2019 |
| Vancouver Rowing Club | 2 | 1929, 1940 |
| Vancouver Utd | 2 | 1977, 1988 |
| Burnaby Albion | 1 | 1992 |
| Fort Nelson RBCAF | 1 | 1947 |
| Richmond Utd | 1 | 1984 |
| Royal Oak Hotspur | 1 | 1934 |
| Victoria Athletic | 1 | 1930 |
| Victoria West | 1 | 2016 |