The Southern Combination Football League (named Premier Sports Southern Combination Football League) is a football league broadly covering the counties of East Sussex, West Sussex, Surrey and South West London, England. The league consists of eight divisions – three for first teams (Premier Division, Division One and Division Two), two for Under 23 teams (East Division and West Division) and three for Under 18 teams (East Division, Central Division and West Division).

Formed in 1920 as the Sussex County Football League,^[1] started with just one league with 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,^[2] 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,^[3] 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.^[4]

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.^[5]

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.

In the past, Unijet, Rich City, Matthew Clark and Badger Ales sponsored the Sussex County Football League. But between 2006 and 2014 the league was without a sponsor. Macron Store (Hastings) signed a 4-year deal beginning in the 2014–15 season resulting in the official name being changed to The Macron Sussex County League and then to The Macron Southern Combination Football League a year later. On 20 June 2023 Premier Sports announced at the League Annual General Meeting that they would be sponsoring the league.^[6]

As of 17 April 2024

Following former clubs are now playing in other leagues or levels.

Only clubs with articles are listed

Since the league's formation, the following clubs have won promotion to higher levels of the English football league system. Crawley Town are currently the only English Football League team to play in the Sussex County League.