On February 12, 2002, US Secretary of State for Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, uttered the immortal words “There are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns.”
Words used to describe Weapons of Mass Destruction seventeen years ago, appear remarkably appropriate to describe the Football Association’s Step 5/6 restructuring programme today.
The Western League Premier Division was destined to have twenty teams going into the 2019/20 season, yet a successful appeal against lateral movement made by Chipping Sodbury Town, means that twenty one will start the next campaign. Cold comfort for Cheddar, who finished runners-up in the First Division last season, only to be denied promotion by a points-per- game system, implemented by the FA as part of the same restructuring programme.
The target of twenty teams per division was one of the FA’s own devising, intended to be implemented across all Step 5 Divisions, the level at which the Western League Premier Division sits in football’s pyramid structure. Yet twenty could so easily have been 22, accommodating the appeals, anomalies and progressive changes that inevitably come as a consequence of a process like this.
Looking across the carnage at Step 5, the Hellenic League has been left with nineteen teams, whilst the Western League now has 21, the same number as the Combined Counties League. Surely a more sensible approach for the FA would have been to give themselves the flexibility of having eighteen-to-22 teams per Division. So where does this leave the FA’s restructuring programme?
The fact that Chipping Sodbury were able to win an appeal, something that few people thought possible, shows that there may be light at the end of the tunnel, although that light is likely to be coming from an oncoming train!
Certainly, one interpretation of the FA’s Handbook for the 2019/20 season suggests they are planning a more Draconian correction for the 2020/21 campaign. The Western League Premier Division will lose between one and three sides through promotion and relegation, not including the “extra” club that needs to go to bring the Division back to twenty sides.
However, a total of eight sides will have a claim to play in the Premier Division next season, with the top four in the Western League First Division, joined by the top two in the two divisions operated by the South West Peninsula League.
The FA’s commitment to promoting football in the South West peninsula is clear, the “significant geographical challenge” in the region prompted the FA to establish a seventeenth division at Step 6. Given that the only logical destination for SWPL sides has to be the Western League, does this relegate the League’s own First Division clubs to second class status when looking for promotion?
Mathematically, lateral movement is an inevitability, so which teams are set to move and where?
Chipping Sodbury may have won their battle, but will they win the war? They are one of five South Gloucestershire sides in the Western League Premier Division, a convenient number to lose from a division that could be oversubscribed by as many as eight teams at the end of next season.
Yet the eastern border is equally vulnerable, possibly more so when you consider the travel implications of the League’s burgeoning Devon contingent. Drawing the Western League territory at the Somerset border enables the “movement” of two Premier Division sides and paves the way for more to leave from the First Division, if needed. Indeed, any Wiltshire sides finishing in the top four of the First Division next season might be booking themselves a one-way ticket to the Hellenic or Wessex Leagues.
The ‘known known’ is that the number of clubs with a claim to play in the Western League Premier Division next season can only be accommodated with the lateral movement of existing Western League sides. We also know that Devon and Cornish sides will take precedence as the FA’s “pure pyramid” takes shape. The ‘known unknown’ is where the hammerstroke will fall hardest.
Will it be on the Leagues’ northern or eastern borders, both or neither? For a game designed to be settled in ninety minutes on the football pitch, why has it become so hard to predict who the winners and losers will be?
Planning for change, particularly when it’s being done by volunteers, is something that the FA should place front and centre in their restructuring strategy, yet their approach feels more like Russian Roulette. They have given themselves three years to deliver this restructuring programme, but how much time are they giving clubs to understand the implications of their changes and accommodate the impact of moving to new Leagues, with potentially fewer games, greater travel and smaller crowds?
It is clear that any club that finds itself near a border with another League should plan for the worst and hope for the best. To date, the FA’s intentions have been at best implicit, requiring seasoned non-league football watchers to second guess the consequences of promotion, relegation and lateral movement.
Given that the FA pay people to do this for a living, not to mention the time frame they’ve given themselves to complete this process, you would have thought the custodians of our National Game could have been a little more explicit about their intentions for the people that really matter, the people that will have to make them work.
Words used to describe Weapons of Mass Destruction seventeen years ago, appear remarkably appropriate to describe the Football Association’s Step 5/6 restructuring programme today.
The Western League Premier Division was destined to have twenty teams going into the 2019/20 season, yet a successful appeal against lateral movement made by Chipping Sodbury Town, means that twenty one will start the next campaign. Cold comfort for Cheddar, who finished runners-up in the First Division last season, only to be denied promotion by a points-per- game system, implemented by the FA as part of the same restructuring programme.
The target of twenty teams per division was one of the FA’s own devising, intended to be implemented across all Step 5 Divisions, the level at which the Western League Premier Division sits in football’s pyramid structure. Yet twenty could so easily have been 22, accommodating the appeals, anomalies and progressive changes that inevitably come as a consequence of a process like this.
Looking across the carnage at Step 5, the Hellenic League has been left with nineteen teams, whilst the Western League now has 21, the same number as the Combined Counties League. Surely a more sensible approach for the FA would have been to give themselves the flexibility of having eighteen-to-22 teams per Division. So where does this leave the FA’s restructuring programme?
The fact that Chipping Sodbury were able to win an appeal, something that few people thought possible, shows that there may be light at the end of the tunnel, although that light is likely to be coming from an oncoming train!
Certainly, one interpretation of the FA’s Handbook for the 2019/20 season suggests they are planning a more Draconian correction for the 2020/21 campaign. The Western League Premier Division will lose between one and three sides through promotion and relegation, not including the “extra” club that needs to go to bring the Division back to twenty sides.
However, a total of eight sides will have a claim to play in the Premier Division next season, with the top four in the Western League First Division, joined by the top two in the two divisions operated by the South West Peninsula League.
The FA’s commitment to promoting football in the South West peninsula is clear, the “significant geographical challenge” in the region prompted the FA to establish a seventeenth division at Step 6. Given that the only logical destination for SWPL sides has to be the Western League, does this relegate the League’s own First Division clubs to second class status when looking for promotion?
Mathematically, lateral movement is an inevitability, so which teams are set to move and where?
Chipping Sodbury may have won their battle, but will they win the war? They are one of five South Gloucestershire sides in the Western League Premier Division, a convenient number to lose from a division that could be oversubscribed by as many as eight teams at the end of next season.
Yet the eastern border is equally vulnerable, possibly more so when you consider the travel implications of the League’s burgeoning Devon contingent. Drawing the Western League territory at the Somerset border enables the “movement” of two Premier Division sides and paves the way for more to leave from the First Division, if needed. Indeed, any Wiltshire sides finishing in the top four of the First Division next season might be booking themselves a one-way ticket to the Hellenic or Wessex Leagues.
The ‘known known’ is that the number of clubs with a claim to play in the Western League Premier Division next season can only be accommodated with the lateral movement of existing Western League sides. We also know that Devon and Cornish sides will take precedence as the FA’s “pure pyramid” takes shape. The ‘known unknown’ is where the hammerstroke will fall hardest.
Will it be on the Leagues’ northern or eastern borders, both or neither? For a game designed to be settled in ninety minutes on the football pitch, why has it become so hard to predict who the winners and losers will be?
Planning for change, particularly when it’s being done by volunteers, is something that the FA should place front and centre in their restructuring strategy, yet their approach feels more like Russian Roulette. They have given themselves three years to deliver this restructuring programme, but how much time are they giving clubs to understand the implications of their changes and accommodate the impact of moving to new Leagues, with potentially fewer games, greater travel and smaller crowds?
It is clear that any club that finds itself near a border with another League should plan for the worst and hope for the best. To date, the FA’s intentions have been at best implicit, requiring seasoned non-league football watchers to second guess the consequences of promotion, relegation and lateral movement.
Given that the FA pay people to do this for a living, not to mention the time frame they’ve given themselves to complete this process, you would have thought the custodians of our National Game could have been a little more explicit about their intentions for the people that really matter, the people that will have to make them work.
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