The Kent Amateur Football League was founded in 1922[1] with the inaugural season being 1922–23.

The league consisted of two separate groupings, the Western and Eastern sections, each with their own management committee.

The Western section comprised a single junior status division with 14 clubs; the Eastern.

The league continued with this format until the 1938–39 season, their last before the outbreak of the Second World War.

[11] This new division was established to provide a competition for senior status Amateur clubs[12] and included seven of the fourteen clubs from the previous season’s Premier Division, plus promoted Slade Green Athletic, together with a three additional clubs from higher ranked leagues (Bowater Lloyds from the Kent League and Aylesford Paper Mills and Royal Naval Depot Chatham from the London League).

The Eastern section began again after World War Two in 1945[13] with two parallel regional divisions which continued for three seasons.

In 1984 there were significant changes to the league organisation: common rules were adopted across the two sections (essentially those of the Western section); a joint management committee comprising five members from each section was appointed; and the teams in the Senior Division, if not of senior status were given intermediate status.

[16] The league began an inter-section cup competition in 1987 with teams form the top two divisions of both the Eastern and Western sections eligible to participate, it was named initially for the league's new sponsors as the ARC Cup;[17] it has subsequently been named the Bill Manklow Inter-regional Challenge Cup.

The clubs in the single Premier and two sectional Division One leagues were designated at least of intermediate status (with clubs hitherto of senior status remaining so).

For clubs that wished to take the step up and had facilities meeting the grading requirements, promotion for a single club was set to commence from the 1995–96 season.

Prior to 1984 the existence of Senior Divisions (which included stronger non-senior clubs) had inhibited annual merit based promotion into the these top divisions; either ballots of the division's clubs generally decided to maintain the status quo rather than vote out existing clubs,[24] or the no relegation status of the senior clubs maintained their position in the divisions.

[15] From 1984 promotion rules were established (which limited the no relegation protection to reserve sides of clubs in higher ranked leagues) and in 1993 the adoption of a single joint Premier Division created a pathway for progressive clubs to move through the regional divisions and into the Kent County League's top Premier Division and further up the Football pyramid.

The sponsorship deals are usually enacted during the summer close season.