Freddie Cox became new Portsmouth manager in August 1958. The new 1958-59 season was the first Football League season with four national divisions. The two old regional Third Divisions (North and South) which had begun in the 1921–22 season were restructured and replaced with two new national divisions, named the Third Division and Fourth Division. At the end of the 1958–59 season Portsmouth finished bottom of the First Division, ending their 32-year stay in the First Division, and relegation to the Second Division. By now, the championship winning team of 1949 and 1950 had been broken up, caused by aging or injury.