The FA’s update details where Clubs are likely to be playing next season, based on the League tables on December 31st. The FA recognise that they “cannot possibly know the final outcomes until the final ball of the season is kicked”, rather this simulation has been undertaken to “provide as much information as practicably possible in order to best prepare Clubs for the 2020-21 season”.
The Northern border of the Premier Division, which sits at Step 5 of the National League pyramid, is projected to hug the M4 and M5 as they arch around Bristol, with Chipping Sodbury, Roman Glass, Hallen, Cribbs and Clevedon all heading into the Hellenic League. The FA’s simulation places a promoted Radstock Town on the Premier Divisions eastern border, which no longer includes the Wiltshire Clubs of Bradford Town, promoted to the Step 4 Southern League, Calne Town, promoted into the Hellenic League and Westbury United, moved into the Wessex League.
To the West, Cornish sides Helston and Saltash are projected to join a Premier Division that will also include six sides from Devon. It is this expansion into the West that provides the main driver for the constriction of the League in the North and East. When the FA published plans to promote the top two Clubs in “the two divisions operated by the South West Peninsula League”, the writing was on the wall for the Western League. The only logical place to promote four Clubs from Devon and Cornwall was “the most geographically appropriate” Western League.
Matters of promotion and relegation have been ceded away from the Leagues in recent seasons and are now administered by the FA’s Leagues Committee, chaired by Mark Frost. Previously the top two sides from the First Division would have been guaranteed promotion to the Premier Division, but as Cheddar found out to their cost last season, this is no longer the case.
So, having moved from a situation where only Keynsham were promoted from the First Division last season, the National League System Regulations now paves the way for the top four in the First Division to qualify for promotion. However, the days of promotion from the First into the Premier Division are now over, as promotion and relegation have become the FA’s primary tool for reorganisation.
For Clane Town, promotion out of the First Division is likely to mean moving into the Hellenic League, yet this alone will not deliver the scale of restructuring the FA are looking for. Lateral movement, as shown in the FA’s latest mapping exercise, is the only way to enable four sides from the SWPL and three from the Western Leagues’ First Division, excluding Calne, to find a place in a Western League Premier Division that is projected to extend from the Coalfields of Somerset to beyond Falmouth.
The construction of the “pure pyramid”, designed to guarantee promotion and relegation across the Leagues, has also served to shift the footprints of the Divisions within the Leagues at Steps 5 and 6. Whilst the Western League is welcoming a burgeoning contingent of sides from Devon and Cornwall into its Step 5 Premier Division, Step 6 sides located in these counties will continue to play in the SWPL. Wiltshire sides like Corsham and Devizes that would be lost to the League if promoted, remain a fixture in its First Division. In the grand scheme of things this administrative anomaly may prove to be of little consequence, but it does serve to muddy the waters for Clubs assessing where their long-term promotion prospects may lie.
The key question for many Western League watchers is where will this process ultimately end? The FA may believe the re-organisation will be complete in the 2020/21 season, but the consequences of the “pure pyramid” are likely to be felt for many years to come and not just by the Western League.
Whilst promotion is unlikely to continue at the levels described in this seasons NLS, the prospect of Devon and Cornish sides consistently joining the Western League has the potential to drag its northern and eastern borders further westward. Indeed, this process will also impact on the standard of competition in the Peninsula League, which faces the prospect of losing traditional powerhouses likes Bodmin Town, Newquay, Falmouth and St Austell if the pressure to promote continues in the coming seasons.
The FA will be updating their league allocations in March and are scheduled to report the latest simulation to all Clubs in April. Whilst the FA have used lateral movement as a way of managing the pyramid in the past, the process hasn’t always run smoothly, as Chipping Sodbury proved at the start of this season when they successfully appealed their movement into the Hellenic League. However, the FA appear to have learnt their lesson, publishing a detailed timetable for the process of finalising next seasons League membership, along with their membership projections.
Whether we are going to Helston in a handcart, or whether this is all just a storm in a teacup, remains to be seen. No matter how it is mistreated, football has a remarkable ability to survive the most turbulent social and economic challenges our society has to offer, which is why it is the game we all love. That said, ‘Plan for the Worst and Hope for the Best’ must remain the mantra for every Western League Club.
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