Regionalised L2/NL - has the time come?

[spurstone]

Dec 17, 2017 21:45:33 GMT @johndaubneyslegs said:

Dec 17, 2017 21:33:17 GMT spurstone said:

Not me! (unfortunately)

What did he say/think?

Opening two sentences. "The clue is in the title: National League. As in, not local.". But article does suggest ways things could be made easier through fixture scheduling.

Ta. As I said, until recently I would have agreed, but I no longer think you have to be national to be taken seriously at our level. And, if you look at the distances involved in the 'northern' half of our league, the savings and benefits would be substantial.

Trying to make fixture scheduling 'fairer' is an absolute nightmare. I was once responsible for organising breaks and early finishes for a night shift of just 8 people, and a relatively simple schedule like that was difficult enough![/quote]


Fair point. I am done with organising now too and have retreated to roles that don't require anything other than organising myself and that is difficult enough haha. Like you though, I remember liking the national thing , and, unless it kills my club and/or football at lower levels in general, I'd like to see it stay that way. Just my opinion of course...

[stainese]

A North/South split sounds easy enough but you can never make every one happy.
Although clubs in the far north/south may benefit there will be those in the midlands that will feel hard done by. The National N/S and the Ryman N/S have shown us that at some point the Leagues will become top heavy with more clubs expecting to be put in sections then places available and traditional money making derbys lost because rivals fall the wrong side of the divide.
Jim Thompson fought hard to create a national league out side the FL you enter the competition you know where you are going avoid promotion if you don't want to get there

[moley]

Dec 16, 2017 23:31:12 GMT @johndaubneyslegs said:

Back in the day, when football was in the shite – hooliganism, falling gates, awful stadiums – there were often proposals for regionalising the lower divisions of the League. Particularly, there were several plans for combining the 4th division and the top non-league clubs, and dividing this into North and South divisions. And, with the establishment of the Alliance/Conference, this idea was revived with renewed interest.

I was always opposed to this. As a supporter of a leading non-league club, I wanted to see my club in its rightful place: the Football League. I did not want us to be in a watered-down 4th division, invited in, instead of earning our place. And, more importantly, going from playing national football, back to regional football again.

It seemed an entirely backward step to me. It would effectively have changed our ambition to that of being promoted to the 3rd division (so we could return to the prestige of playing national football) – a much harder target than just getting into the 4th division (which, in those days, was much weaker than today’s League Two).

However, a lot has changed since then, and I now find myself warming to the idea of higher-level regional football. In the old days, the possibility of getting into the League was almost non-existent, it had only happened half a dozen times since the war – we ourselves discovered just how hard, and unfair- it was. But now automatic promotion is established and accepted, and this has made the National League effectively the 5th division of the English football. It has also raised standards considerably in both the National League and League Two.

This has had a two-fold impact on League Two and National clubs: It has created a pool of 30-40 clubs of similar ability (and not-dissimilar support), distinguishable from each other only in their history and stadium heritage. But it has also increased costs in both leagues, as much higher standards are now expected, and made it much harder to run a small club on football revenue alone. If clubs had to survive on gate income alone, there would be many fewer teams – in both the National and League Two.

So, a two-stage “4th Division” already effectively exists. The only difference from the plans envisaged back in the 80s is that this ‘greater’ 4th Division is divided into two by history, instead of geography. And, whereas, in the 80s most clubs (pro and semi-pro) could struggle on by simply not spending any money on their facilities, these days, simply staging football games (meeting both the legal and supporter expectations) has become prohibitively expensive.

Combining and regionalising the two divisions would therefore now make a lot more sense. Not only would it greatly reduce travel costs (nearly all games reachable in under two hours, many in under an hour), but it would also increase the number of derby games and increase all gates, as most games became local aways.

And, with automatic promotion/relegation an established part of the league structure, there would no longer be the stigma of not playing in a national league. The realistic ambition of most clubs in the new, regionalised League Two would be to gain promotion to League One, exactly as it is for us now to aim at League Two membership. Added to that, we would find ourselves regularly playing clubs once considered as ‘above’ us (regular Gills-Stones derbies, anyone?).

And how many Stones supporters would genuinely miss the long drag to places like Barrow, Gateshead, Fylde and Hartlepool?

When I was younger (those 1980's again) I had the energy to travel the country every week/other week to watch the Stones, now the idea of regionalisation really appeals, I'm to old to gallivant up and down the country on a regular basis now so a drop in mileage will see me at more away games.

AND train fares in the 80's were far more affordable and the motorways were much less crowded then

[spurstone]

Dec 19, 2017 20:02:32 GMT moley said:

Dec 16, 2017 23:31:12 GMT @johndaubneyslegs said:

Back in the day, when football was in the shite – hooliganism, falling gates, awful stadiums – there were often proposals for regionalising the lower divisions of the League. Particularly, there were several plans for combining the 4th division and the top non-league clubs, and dividing this into North and South divisions. And, with the establishment of the Alliance/Conference, this idea was revived with renewed interest.

I was always opposed to this. As a supporter of a leading non-league club, I wanted to see my club in its rightful place: the Football League. I did not want us to be in a watered-down 4th division, invited in, instead of earning our place. And, more importantly, going from playing national football, back to regional football again.

It seemed an entirely backward step to me. It would effectively have changed our ambition to that of being promoted to the 3rd division (so we could return to the prestige of playing national football) – a much harder target than just getting into the 4th division (which, in those days, was much weaker than today’s League Two).

However, a lot has changed since then, and I now find myself warming to the idea of higher-level regional football. In the old days, the possibility of getting into the League was almost non-existent, it had only happened half a dozen times since the war – we ourselves discovered just how hard, and unfair- it was. But now automatic promotion is established and accepted, and this has made the National League effectively the 5th division of the English football. It has also raised standards considerably in both the National League and League Two.

This has had a two-fold impact on League Two and National clubs: It has created a pool of 30-40 clubs of similar ability (and not-dissimilar support), distinguishable from each other only in their history and stadium heritage. But it has also increased costs in both leagues, as much higher standards are now expected, and made it much harder to run a small club on football revenue alone. If clubs had to survive on gate income alone, there would be many fewer teams – in both the National and League Two.

So, a two-stage “4th Division” already effectively exists. The only difference from the plans envisaged back in the 80s is that this ‘greater’ 4th Division is divided into two by history, instead of geography. And, whereas, in the 80s most clubs (pro and semi-pro) could struggle on by simply not spending any money on their facilities, these days, simply staging football games (meeting both the legal and supporter expectations) has become prohibitively expensive.

Combining and regionalising the two divisions would therefore now make a lot more sense. Not only would it greatly reduce travel costs (nearly all games reachable in under two hours, many in under an hour), but it would also increase the number of derby games and increase all gates, as most games became local aways.

And, with automatic promotion/relegation an established part of the league structure, there would no longer be the stigma of not playing in a national league. The realistic ambition of most clubs in the new, regionalised League Two would be to gain promotion to League One, exactly as it is for us now to aim at League Two membership. Added to that, we would find ourselves regularly playing clubs once considered as ‘above’ us (regular Gills-Stones derbies, anyone?).

And how many Stones supporters would genuinely miss the long drag to places like Barrow, Gateshead, Fylde and Hartlepool?

When I was younger (those 1980's again) I had the energy to travel the country every week/other week to watch the Stones, now the idea of regionalisation really appeals, I'm to old to gallivant up and down the country on a regular basis now so a drop in mileage will see me at more away games.

AND train fares in the 80's were far more affordable and the motorways were much less crowded then

But now with media as it is you don't have to travel everywhere all the time to keep up with your team. I've spent the last 25 odd years desperate for the day for my/our club to get out of regional football again. So I don't want us to get stuffed back in it now after just a couple years without it being of our own doing.

[Deleted]

Dec 19, 2017 21:59:45 GMT spurstone said:

Dec 19, 2017 20:02:32 GMT moley said:

When I was younger (those 1980's again) I had the energy to travel the country every week/other week to watch the Stones, now the idea of regionalisation really appeals, I'm to old to gallivant up and down the country on a regular basis now so a drop in mileage will see me at more away games.

AND train fares in the 80's were far more affordable and the motorways were much less crowded then

But now with media as it is you don't have to travel everywhere all the time to keep up with your team. I've spent the last 25 odd years desperate for the day for my/our club to get out of regional football again. So I don't want us to get stuffed back in it now after just a couple years without it being of our own doing.

I know Spurs have had a rough time recently, but I'd never realised it had been that bad...