ENOUGH IS ENOUGH
LET’S SEE COMMON SENSE & DITCH THE PLAY-OFFS AT STEPS 3 AND 4
Ihave always believed that as an administrator in football, whether you are the office junior or a chief executive, it is a thankless task pleasing the masses. It feels like every decision is magnified and picked to pieces, by every club and almost every supporter. The common theme is that anyone with an opinion can do a better job. The Football Association has come in for plenty of stick in recent weeks following the restructure of the leagues at Steps 3 and 4. The idea was simple, with best intentions at heart: more leagues created greater congestion between the clubs, meaning less travelling and more local derbies. The implementation of the idea, however, was never going to be straightforward. While most clubs affected by the introduction of the Southern Central and Isthmian Central leagues seem happy with their lot, a number of initial appeals were rejected while Hednesford Town, Banbury United and Fleet Town will have to wait until early July to hear their fate following the folding of Shaw Lane’s first team from the Northern Premier League. I don’t envy the decision-makers here… But if the restructure and subsequent geographical issues lit the early fuse, last week’s news of how the playoffs will work next season sent an explosion through the heart of the pyramid. First, a quick recap: the four divisions at Step 3 will have six spaces to fill in National North and South, as vacated by those relegated clubs at Step 2. Naturally, the four divisional champions are granted automatic promotion, leaving two spaces from the four play-offs, where the winners will then contest ‘super play-offs’ – two one-leg games played at the club with the highest points-pergame average from the season. The two winners from the ‘supers’ then join the champions. Voila! On the face of it, the ‘super play-offs’ at Step 3 carry some logic; it’s effectively a play-off within a play-off, another step that needs to be hurdled in a club’s quest for promotion despite it being ultimately unfair on two clubs who finished second in the league. However, down at Step 4, I just can’t see any method to the madness where seven teams can win a play-off final across the seven divisions, and two could already know before they have kicked off that they cannot go up due to having an inferior points-per-game ratio. That is the scenario we are faced with as things stand, because with 12 promotion spaces up for grabs across the seven divisions, there will be only five left for the seven second-placed teams to fight over. If I am not making much sense of it, that’s probably because there is little sense to it, in my humble opinion…
Ambition
It is the FA’s hope that by 2020 we have a ‘pure’ National League System with a 1-2-4-8-16 pyramid, and they accept that over the next two seasons as they build towards that objective the waters will be choppy as clubs settle into their new leagues and new ways of life. But let’s make life more straightforward for all clubs involved and simply abolish the play-offs until we get a National League System that is symmetrically structured to deliver consistency. It should be noted that clubs who miss out via the ‘super’ play-offs at Step 3 and the ‘points-per-game’ play-offs at Step 4 will be the first to benefit if a hole is created above them in the pyramid. But there should be little to cheer about for the game if that happens and clubs cashing in on another’s demise is a sorry way to reach the promised land of promotion. In last week’s issue, a letter from Stephen Cooper – the chairman of Peterborough Sports – suggested handing the top three runners-up at Step 4 with the best pointsper-game average a bye to automatic promotion, leaving the next four to battle it out in a standard play-off format. There are obvious and clear benefits to this, but why mix it up? The points-per-game is the perfect barometer for finding the clubs that have performed to the highest level in a season. Let all clubs know the five at Step 4 and two at Step 3 with the best average go up. The results will make for a more competitive and honest level of play. I love the play-offs; I have seen my team win in them and lose in them, and they have become part of the footballing fabric in this country with fans dining out on the excitement they create. But excitement and ultimately heartbreak – and, let’s face it, the extra revenue these games bring – should not come at the expense of the game’s integrity. I am not here to stick the boot into The FA because they do a fantastic job in every corner of the game (honest opinion here). But please, ditch the play-offs, both at Step 3 and 4, until we have a system that works in everyone’s favour. Their vision for a 1-2-4-8-16 pyramid is to be applauded, and will take the game in the lower leagues to a level we all want to be at. We can’t have a couple of seasons where clubs miss out due to a different set of rules. Let’s keep the game honest... and simple!