Northern Ireland Football League
# Season Senior champions ( number of senior titles ) Runners-up Third Leading goalscorer Goals
108 2008-09 Glentoran ( 23 ) Linfield Crusaders Curtis Allen ( Lisburn Distillery ) 19
109 2009-10 Linfield ( 49 ) Cliftonville Glentoran Rory Patterson ( Coleraine ) 30
110 2010-11 Linfield ( 50 ) Crusaders Glentoran Peter Thompson ( Linfield ) 23
111 2011-12 Linfield ( 51 ) Portadown Cliftonville Gary McCutcheon ( Ballymena United ) 27
112 2012-13 Cliftonville ( 4 ) Crusaders Linfield Liam Boyce ( Cliftonville ) 29
Senior -- List of champions and runners-up
The Northern Ireland Football League (commonly abbreviated to NIFL), known historically, and still colloquially, as the Irish League, is the national football league of Northern Ireland. The Irish League was originally formed in 1890, with the league in its current format created in 2013 to assume independent collective management of the top three levels of the Northern Ireland football league system; namely the Premiership, Championship and Premier Intermediate League. In addition to the league divisions, the NIFL also operates the Northern Ireland Football League Cup for its member clubs, as well as the NIFL Development League and George Wilson Cup for their reserve teams, and the NIFL Youth League and NIFL Youth League Cup for their youth teams. Operated as a limited company, the 36 member clubs act as shareholders with one vote each. The NIFL is the successor to the Irish Football League, which was historically the league for the entire island of Ireland upon its formation in 1890; it became Northern Ireland's national league after the partition of Ireland in 1921. Linfield are the current champions, lifting the league title for a record 53rd time. The title win was confirmed on 13 April 2019, following a 0-0 draw at home against the outgoing champions, Crusaders, which left them 12 points clear with three games remaining.