Bank Holiday date for NPL play-off final
THE dates for the playoffs involving Pitching In Northern Premier League clubs have been confirmed.
The NPL Premier Division play-off final will take place on Monday May 2, with the winner earning promotion to National League North.
This will be the first playoff final since Warrington Town beat South Shields in May 2019. The Yellows subsequently missed out on promotion by losing in a super play-off to King’s Lynn Town.
The semi-finals for all four NPL divisions - Premier, East, Midlands and West will take place on Tuesday April 26, after the final round of fixtures on Saturday April 23.
The finals for the three step four divisions will take place on Saturday April 30.
All play-off finals will be played at the home ground of the highest ranked team.
The champions and playoff winners from the East, Midlands and West Divisions will gain promotion to step three.
Radcliffe and Brighouse Town were the last two sides to win NPL play-off finals at step four back in 2018/19 although Brighouse missed out on promotion on PPG.
The NPL has since adopted a third division at step four as part of the National League System restructure.
The inter-step play-off matches, which will involve some of the teams that finish third bottom in the step four divisions against teams from step five, will also take place on April 30.
The two teams with the best points per game that finish third bottom across the eight step four divisions will avoid the inter step playoffs.
The remaining six will go up against the six worst ranked (by PPG) runners-up from step five leagues.
As of the weekend, Colne in the West Division would avoid the inter step play-off based on PPG and retain their status at step four.
In terms of relegation from the Premier Division, the bottom two teams will go down.
That is also the case across the other three divisions at step three Southern League Premier Central, Southern League Premier South and Isthmian Premier.
The team that finishes third bottom with the worst PPG across the four divisions will also be relegated - though NPL side Hyde United currently have the best PPG of all of those clubs and so would avoid relegation.