League One and League Two 2026/27: Leicester in tier three

League One and League Two both start on Saturday 15 August, and this season English football's third tier has a guest you almost never see there: a Premier League champion.

Leicester, in the third tier for the second time in 142 years

Leicester City dropped into League One after finishing twenty-third in the Championship on 46 points, including a six-point deduction for breaching financial rules. It is the second time they have fallen to the third tier in 142 years of history, and the first since 2008/09. They are also the fifth club ever to suffer back-to-back relegations from the Premier League. Russell Martin was appointed manager on 15 June on a three-year contract.

Down with them went Sheffield Wednesday, whose season was among the strangest on record: they finished the campaign on zero points. They earned eighteen on the pitch — two wins and twelve draws — and had eighteen deducted: twelve for entering administration in October and six more in December for breaching payment obligations. The Arise Capital Partners takeover completed on 2 May, and the EFL chose not to apply the further fifteen-point sanction that would have followed, a decision several Championship clubs questioned. The third club relegated was Oxford United.

Who went up: 103 points and a 65-year wait

Lincoln City won League One on 103 points and returned to the second tier after sixty-five years. It is the twentieth hundred-point season in English football history, though not a record: Birmingham managed 111 in 2024/25. Cardiff joined them on 91 points, going straight back up.

The remaining place went to Bolton, who beat Stockport 4-1 in the play-off final at Wembley on 24 May in front of 48,268. Rúben Rodrigues scored in the 3rd minute and again from a penalty in the fourth minute of stoppage time.

In League Two, Bromley went up as champions on 87 points, MK Dons on 86 and Cambridge United on 82. Notts County won the play-off, beating Salford 3-0 at Wembley on 25 May. Bromley's case is remarkable: it is their first time in the third tier in the club's entire history, and it comes in only their second EFL season. Their ground, Hayes Lane, holds 6,100; Hillsborough, in the same division, holds 39,732.

The play-offs do NOT change here

This point is worth stating plainly, because it has been widely muddled. The expansion of the play-offs from four clubs to six, approved in March 2026, applies to the Championship only. League One and League Two keep the four-team format in 2026/27.

• League One: the top two go up; third to sixth contest the play-offs, two-legged semi-finals and a single final at Wembley.
• League Two: the top three go up; fourth to seventh contest the play-offs, on the same pattern.
• There is no eliminator round, no bye for the higher finishers and no single-leg semi-final in either division.
• Four clubs are relegated from League One and two from League Two.

Names to follow

Two dugouts stand out for who is sitting in them: Aaron Ramsey has managed Oxford United since 23 June, and Jack Wilshere is in charge at Luton Town. The rest of the division includes Nigel Clough at Mansfield, Paul Warne at MK Dons, Graham Alexander at Bradford, Tom Cleverley at Plymouth and Daniel Stendel back at Barnsley.

League Two's list is just as striking: Steve Evans at Bristol Rovers, Ian Holloway at Swindon, Gareth Ainsworth at Gillingham, Paul Cook at Chesterfield, Danny Cowley at Colchester and Micky Mellon at Oldham. And there is Grimsby Town, who in August 2025 knocked Manchester United out of the League Cup at Blundell Park, 12-11 on penalties.

The spread of size inside a single division is what makes English football's third tier unlike anyone else's. League One averaged close to ten thousand a game last season, peaking above twenty-seven thousand for Cardiff against Lincoln in March and dipping below three thousand at the other end. In League Two, one afternoon held both a fixture watched by more than twenty-three thousand people and another watched by fewer than fifteen hundred. These are competitions where a club on a Premier League budget visits clubs whose entire ground would fit inside one stand of its own.

The opening weekend already offers a couple of loaded fixtures: Notts County host Leicester and Leyton Orient host Sheffield Wednesday, both at lunchtime on Saturday the 15th.

"A club that won the Premier League in 2016 starts the season at a six-thousand-seat ground. England's third division is not like anybody else's third division."

• Simulate all 46 matchdays of League One or League Two and build the full table.
• See whether Leicester go straight back up or get stuck.
• Fill in the four-team play-off bracket and decide who reaches Wembley.
• Change any result and watch the table rearrange instantly.

"Open the EFL simulator and decide who goes up this season."