One of English football’s biggest assets is the strength and depth of our footballing pyramid. Whilst some turn their noses up at non-league football, those who have watched the lower leagues will know that there is much quality and enjoyment to be found.
But one aspect of the pyramid in particular has been a topic of discussion for a long time now, with many believing it to be unfair and in need of immediate change. This aspect being the ways in which relegation from League Two and promotion from the National League work.
The National League is notoriously an incredibly difficult league to get out of, with only two promotion places up for grabs. One place for the winner of the league and the other for the winner of a ruthless playoff.
Last Season
You only have to look at the most recent National League season to get an idea of how tough it is to achieve promotion from the 5th tier. Barnet won the league with 102 points; thus, they were promoted automatically back to the football league.
The six playoff places went to York City, Forest Green Rovers, Rochdale, Oldham Athletic, FC Halifax Town and Southend United. As 2nd and 3rd place finishers, York and Forest Green were given a bye to the semi-finals.
Oldham made light work of Halifax at Boundary Park whilst Southend pulled off a magnificent comeback at the Crown Oil Arena to progress. Considering York and Forest Green were coming into their games much fresher than their opposition (especially considering Southend had played a full 120 minutes against Rochdale), plus the fact that they’d finished above their respective opponents in the table, you’d think that we’d be looking at a York vs Forest Green playoff final.
But you’d be wrong. Oldham beat York 3-0 away from home to advance to the final, whilst Southend beat Forest Green on penalties in Gloucestershire to punch their ticket to Wembley.
Criticism
Many people are not fans of this playoff system for several reasons. Number one being the fact that York City finished on 96 points and yet that wasn’t enough to be promoted. Secondly, there are no second legs in the rounds before the final so an entire season of hard work can be irradicated by a single result.
Finally, York and Forest Green were unhappy because they had to wait 15 and 16 days respectively between their final games of the season and their playoff games. In all honesty, I think that there are pros and cons to having to wait that long i.e. they are much fresher than their opponents but of course won’t be as match sharp.
Some may still not see this as an issue, but the question should be asked, if the Championship and League One have three promotion places and League Two has four, why does the National League only have two? All it is doing is keeping strong teams such as York, Southend and Rochdale out of League Two but at the top of the National League which only hurts the other teams in the league who are not playoff contenders.
Furthermore, it leads to more money being spent at the top of the division which the teams lower down the table cannot compete with. I completely understand why the teams in League Two would not be in favour of something which could potentially come back to bite them.
But two teams have to go down regardless and I’m sure once they experience how difficult getting out of the National League is, they’d soon be in favour of a three up three down system.
What Is Being Done About Relegation?
In February, the 72 teams in the fifth and sixth tiers wrote to the EFL Board to demand a third promotion place for the National League, and now all 5th tier games on the 15th of November will kick off at 3:03pm. This issue is not just going to go away.
As more and more former EFL clubs have found themselves stuck in the National League, it’s popularity and quality has only increased over time. The most recent National League playoff final between Southend and Oldham saw 52,115 fans fill Wembley Stadium, breaking the previous record of 47,029.
This number would’ve been even larger had Wembley Park tube station not been closed, leading to each club only initially being allocated 17,500 tickets each. On that point, would engineering works be planned on the day of the FA Cup final or the Community Shield?
Of course not. Non-League football has been disregarded for far too long and it’s about time that the three up, three down system was implemented.
