The 1993–94 Football League season was the 95th completed season of The Football League. From 1993 to 1996 the league was sponsored by Endsleigh.

Alan Smith kicked off his management career by guiding Crystal Palace to the Division One title and back to the Premier League at the first time of asking. Nottingham Forest, now managed by Frank Clark following Brian Clough's retirement, also made a swift return to the Premier League by finishing runners-up to Palace. They were joined by play-off winners Leicester City, who finally reached the top flight after two successive play-off final defeats.

Oxford United's decline since losing their top-flight status in 1988 continued as they slid into Division Two, along with Peterborough United and Birmingham City.

Mark McGhee won the Division Two title for Reading, with John Rudge's Port Vale taking the other automatic promotion place. Burnley triumphed in the play-offs, thus moving to within one division of the top flight just seven years after they had almost been relegated to the Conference. Fulham, Hartlepool United, Exeter City and Barnet were the teams relegated to Division Three.

Shrewsbury Town, Chester City and Crewe Alexandra claimed the three automatic promotion places in Division Three, while Martin O'Neill's Wycombe Wanderers won the play-offs in their first season of league football. Northampton Town finished bottom of the league, but were saved from demotion as Conference champions Kidderminster Harriers did not meet the league's stadium capacity requirements.

Final league tables and results

The tables and results below are reproduced here in the exact form that they can be found at The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation website,^[1] with home and away statistics separated. Play-off results are from the same website.

First Division

Following relegation from the Premier League at the end of the 1992-93 season, Crystal Palace earned an immediate return to the top flight by finishing champions of Division One with 90 points in their first season under manager Alan Smith. Their nearest rivals, Nottingham Forest, newly relegated and also with a new manager in Frank Clark, finished runners-up on 83 points.

After losing in the previous two playoff finals and on all of their six previous visits to Wembley, Leicester City finally won a Wembley final at the seventh attempt by beating local rivals Derby County in the Division One playoff final to end their seven-year absence from the top flight. Leicester's semi-final opponents Tranmere lost at this stage of the playoffs for a second successive season, also suffering defeat in the League Cup semi-finals. Third placed Millwall were defeated by Derby in the other semi-finals.

Four months after resigning as England manager, Graham Taylor succeeded long-serving Graham Turner as manager of a Wolves side who just fell short of the playoffs. Middlesbrough, another side who missed out on the playoffs, prepared for a promotion push in 1994-95 by appointing former Manchester United and England captain Bryan Robson as player-manager following the resignation of Lennie Lawrence at the end of the season.

At the other end of the table, Peterborough United's second season in Division One ended in relegation when they finished bottom of the table. Oxford United, who lost manager Brian Horton to Manchester City a few games into the season, were unable to avoid relegation under new manager Denis Smith, while the last relegation place went to Birmingham City, who were edged into the bottom three by local rivals West Bromwich Albion.

Play-offs

Results