| Competition: | The Football League |
| Season: | 2004–05 |
| Winners: | Sunderland |
| Promoted: | Sunderland Wigan Athletic West Ham United |
| Relegated: | Kidderminster Harriers Cambridge United |
| Continentalcup1: | New Clubs in League |
| Continentalcup1 Qualifiers: | Chester City Shrewsbury Town |
| Prevseason: | 2003–04 |
| Nextseason: | 2005–06 |
The 2004–05 Football League (known as the Coca-Cola Football League for sponsorship reasons) was the 106th completed season of The Football League.
2004–05 was the first season of the rebranded Football League, with the First, Second and Third Divisions becoming the Football League Championship, Football League One and Football League Two respectively. Coca-Cola replaced the Nationwide Building Society as title sponsor.
Wigan Athletic were promoted to the Premier League as Championship runners-up. They had only been elected to the Football League in 1978, had been the league's fourth-lowest placed club in the 1993–94 season, and before 2003 had never reached the second tier of English football.
Nottingham Forest were relegated from the Championship to League One, becoming the first former European Cup winners to be relegated to the third tier of their domestic league – having won two straight European Cups a quarter of a century earlier. Only ten seasons previously, in 1994–95, they had finished third in the Premier League, and had reached the quarter-finals of the UEFA Cup the following season.
The tables below are reproduced here in the exact form that they can be found at The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation website,[2] with home and away statistics separated. Play-off results are from the same website.
See main article: 2004–05 Football League Championship.
| Competition: | Football League Championship |
| Season: | 2004–05 |
| Winners: | Sunderland (4th second tier title) |
| Continentalcup1: | Direct promotion to FA Premier League |
| Continentalcup1 Qualifiers: | Sunderland, Wigan Athletic |
| Continentalcup2: | Promoted to FA Premier League through play-offs |
| Continentalcup2 Qualifiers: | West Ham United |
| Continentalcup3: | Relegated |
| Continentalcup3 Qualifiers: | Gillingham, Nottingham Forest, Rotherham United |
| League Topscorer: | Nathan Ellington (Wigan Athletic), 24 [3] |
| Matches: | 552 |
| Total Goals: | 1342 |
| Prevseason: | 2003–04 (First Division) |
| Nextseason: | 2005–06 |
| width=20 | Rank | width=155 | Player | width=155 | Club | width=50 | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nathan Ellington | Wigan Athletic | 24 | ||||
| 2 | 21 | ||||||
| = | 21 | ||||||
| 4 | 20 | ||||||
| = | 20 | ||||||
| 6 | 19 | ||||||
| = | 19 | ||||||
| 8 | 18 | ||||||
| = | 18 | ||||||
| 10 | 17 | ||||||
| = | 17 | ||||||
| 12 | 16 |
See main article: 2004–05 Football League One.
| Competition: | Football League One |
| Season: | 2004–05 |
| Winners: | Luton Town (1st divisional title) |
| Continentalcup1: | Direct promotion |
| Continentalcup1 Qualifiers: | Luton Town, Hull City |
| Continentalcup2: | Promoted through play-offs |
| Continentalcup2 Qualifiers: | Sheffield Wednesday |
| Continentalcup3: | Relegated |
| Continentalcup3 Qualifiers: | Peterborough United, Stockport County, Torquay United, Wrexham |
| League Topscorer: | Stuart Elliott (Hull City), 27 Dean Windass (Bradford City), 27 |
| Matches: | 552 |
| Total Goals: | 1551 |
| Prevseason: | 2003–04 |
| Nextseason: | 2005–06 |
| width=20 | Rank | width=155 | Player | width=210 | Club | width=50 | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dean Windass | Bradford City | 27 | ||||
| = | Stuart Elliott | Hull City | 27 | ||||
| 3 | 26 | ||||||
| 4 | 24 | ||||||
| = | 24 | ||||||
| 6 | 23 | ||||||
| 7 | 21 | ||||||
| 8 | 19 | ||||||
| = | 19 | ||||||
| = | 19 |
See main article: 2004–05 Football League Two.
| Competition: | Football League Two |
| Season: | 2004–05 |
| Winners: | Yeovil Town (1st fourth tier title) |
| Continentalcup1: | Direct promotion |
| Continentalcup1 Qualifiers: | Yeovil Town, Scunthorpe United, Swansea City |
| Continentalcup2: | Promoted through play-offs |
| Continentalcup2 Qualifiers: | Southend United |
| Continentalcup3: | Relegated to Conference |
| Continentalcup3 Qualifiers: | Cambridge United, Kidderminster Harriers |
| Continentalcup4: | New club in the league |
| Continentalcup4 Qualifiers: | Chester City, Shrewsbury Town |
| League Topscorer: | Phil Jevons (Yeovil Town), 27 |
| Matches: | 552 |
| Total Goals: | 1347 |
| Prevseason: | 2003–04 |
| Nextseason: | 2005–06 |
| width=20 | Rank | width=155 | Player | width=155 | Club | width=50 | League |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Phil Jevons | Yeovil Town | 27 | ||||
| 2 | 26 | ||||||
| 3 | 22 | ||||||
| = | 22 | ||||||
| = | 22 | ||||||
| 6 | 21 | ||||||
| = | 21 | ||||||
| 8 | 19 | ||||||
| 9 | 17 | ||||||
| = | 17 |