MIDLANDS MINEFIELD!

IMBALANCES in neighbouring leagues risk leaving a “totally distorted” Midland Football League Premier Division with greater problems in the future.

That is the view of long-serving MFL chairman Mick Joiner after the FA’s league allocations for next season saw the division’s footprint dragged farther towards the north-west.

Seven clubs from its eastern flank got transferred to the United Counties League as part of an FA restructure to create two extra Step 5 divisions in the summer of 2021. Three of those – Long Eaton United, Gresley Rovers and Coventry Sphinx – have since been promoted, as have Quorn and Shepshed Dynamo, clubs that were laterally transferred in 2019.

The Midland League has also lost Westfields and now Worcester City from the south as its boundary stretches into Cheshire with Congleton Town, Northwich Victoria and Winsford United drafted in from the North West Counties League – Northwich and Winsford have appealed against the move.

Joiner says he has always been “fully supportive” of efforts to create a balanced National League System but argues that the North West Counties Premier being fed by two Step 6 divisions, while the two Step 5 divisions in the UCL are supported by one Step 6 league, was always going to create a ripple effect.

“The way it is set up at the moment is creating more lateral movement, it just seems to have become totally distorted,” he said.

“We now don’t have clubs from what I term as the Midlands – Coventry, even Worcester – while we go up to Cheshire.

“Maybe the long-term aim would be to eradicate what you term as regional divisions. I am totally against that, I am a Midlands man, always have been, always will be, and I am trying to support Midlands clubs.”

The issue is particularly acute this summer. Even with the new additions from an oversubscribed NWCL, the Midland

Premier has been reduced from 20 to 18 clubs as UCL-bound Racing Club Warwick join Worcester City in being shipped out.

Revisit

“I understand the difficulty the FA has now there is a set pattern but I am not at all happy with finishing up with 18 teams,” added Joiner.

“Clubs rely on home matches and being two short, depending who or where you are, can vary your income by a few hundred or even a few thousand pounds.

“It is not as we would like it and not how I anticipated it six or seven years ago when we were driving the perfect pyramid. Clearly it is not working as it should because we have 24 teams in one league (NWCL Premier) and 18 in another.

“We were going to have a revisit after three or four years to see whether it was working. I am not aware whether that has taken place but from the outside looking in it doesn’t seem to be working – the starting point was to have 20 teams in every division.

“A league is provided to support clubs. It appears now that the clubs are supporting the leagues – that’s the wrong way around, isn’t it?

“I don’t have all the answers but they need providing. We cannot continue as we are.”