THE COLD END'S IDEA

SORTING OUT THE PROBLEMS OF PROMOTION FROM STEP 5 TO STEP 4

Many pundits write about changing the football pyramid to help the struggling Football League clubs. To merge League One and League Two to form a League One North and League One South is one idea that has been suggested over the past few seasons. Surely this would be a good idea as take Leyton Orient, for example, instead of facing trips to Hartlepool, Oldham Athletic and Tranmere Rovers they would play Barnet, Aldershot and Southend United in a new League One South set-up. No disrespect to the Northern based clubs but I'm sure The O's travelling support would prefer shorter trips on the road. Vice-Versa the three teams I've mentioned from the current League One would probably prefer to play Bradford, Rotherham and Port Vale in a new set up. The positives are there to see with lower travelling costs, less overnight stays and many more travelling fans to name but a few.

The cold end is essentially a non-league blog so I won't go into the above too much but concentrate on the current situation of promotion and relegation between Step 4 of the non-league level (Enfield Town's current level) and Step 5 (Essex Senior, Eastern Counties and Spartan Premier level)

At present there are 14 champion clubs from Step 5 leagues that could take up 12 promotion places meaning that 2 clubs currently miss out. There are no play-offs meaning league's can become somewhat stagnant if a club runs away with a league championship.

So the first part of the problem is that we need to find a way of only 12 league title winners booking their place at Step 4 so 2 champion clubs don't miss out. The solution is merge two of the leagues to then have only 12 leagues at Step 5.

In the cold end's new pyramid I would merge the Essex Senior League and Kent Football League to form a new Essex & Kent Senior Football League. If this would of happened at the end of the 2010/11 season I would taken the top nine in each division (minus the champions who were promoted) to create the Premier Divison and the sides underneath them to create the First Division.

The new (hypothetical) Essex & Kent Senior Football League for 2011/12

Premier Division       First Division 

Barking                Barkingside                 
Burnham Ramblers       Basildon United 
Bethnal Green United   Beckenham Town 
Erith & Belvedere      Bowers & Pitsea 
Erith Town             Clapton 
Eton Manor             Corinthian 
Greenwich Borough      Deal Town 
Herne Bay              Fisher Athletic 
Hullbridge Sports      Holmesdale 
Norton Sports          London APSA
Sevenoaks              Lordswood 
Southend Manor         Mauritius Sports 
Stansted               Sawbridgeworth  
Tunbridge Wells        Sporting Bengal United 
VCD Athletic           Takeley 
Witham Town
(16 CLUBS)             (15 CLUBS) 

This would leave us with 13 leagues so to merge the Eastern Counties League and United Counties League would be the next change. The same idea would be to split the two old Premier Divisions into a Premier Division and Division One by taking the bottom and top half teams as I have done in the above example. The old Division One's would become Division Two (West) to cover the old UCL clubs and Division Two (East) the old ECL clubs.

The downside of this idea would see some clubs travelling increase but there are more pros than cons in my opinion. It would increase interest and give us more competitive leagues.

To help progressive clubs who want to climb the pyramid I would introduce play-offs at Step 5. This would produce a further 12 winning clubs who would play off one more match against their neighbouring league to see who goes up. There would be a straight 3 down from Step 4 leagues. Confused - Here is an example from this year's Spartan South Midlands Premier Division and United Counties Premier Division -

SSMFL                            UCL 
Champions - Chalfont St Peter    Champions - St Neots Town 
Play-Offs                        Play-Offs                        
2. Tring Athletic                2. Kings Lynn Town 
3. Royston Town                  3. Newport Pagnell Town  
4. Leverstock Green              4. Long Buckby 
5. Colney Heath                  5. Wellingborough Town  

So again hypothetically speaking say Royston Town and Kings Lynn Town qualify from the play-offs of their respective leagues to face each other in a big play-off game whereby the winners get promotion 

Likewise the play off winners from all the other Step 5 leagues would face a further play-off against their neighbouring league's representative. It obviously would mean more football but I'm sure the clubs wouldn't mind playing an extra two or three games to gain that all elusive promotion and in turn it would generate more fans through the turnstiles in the race for the play-offs.

So, there we have it the cold end's idea to sort out promotion and relelgation between Step 5 and Step 4 of the non-league pyramid. Just an idea............What do you think???