Football Conference petition for "Three Up/Three Down"
By Nathan Jackson
June 25 2010
The Football Conference has now officially petitioned the Football League to allow the divisions to swap three teams every year. The current two up-two down system has been in place since 2002 and despite a lot of teams coming up and struggling against the drop, the Conference has always had the impression that the line is getting thinner.
The Football Conference have had a long running belief that their should be more promotion places. They will now officially hand a petition to the Football League to gain that extra promotion place, meaning three up-three down. It would certainly mean that the pressure would certainly be on more at the bottom of the Football League.
Since the two up-two down system came into place, Yeovil, Doncaster, Chester, Shrewsbury, Barnet, Carlisle, Accrington, Hereford, Dagenham, Morecambe, Aldershot, Exeter, Burton, Torquay, Stevenage and Oxford have come up to League Two. As of next season, one of those teams will play in the Championship, four will be in League One, ten will be in League Two and one don't exist anymore.
On the flip side of the coin, Shrewsbury, Exeter, York, Carlisle, Cambridge, Kidderminster, Oxford, Rushden, Boston, Torquay, Wrexham, Mansfield, Luton, Chester, Darlington and Grimsby Down, sorry, Town, all got relegated in the same time period. Five of those teams have since won promotion back (Shrewsbury and Carlisle at the first attempt), whereas York and Cambridge have both lost in Playoff Finals.
Mansfield Town's David Holdsworth is now publicly backing the bid in the hopes that it would be beneficial to everyone involved.
"It's mad, bonkers, that two go up out of our division and four from League Two to League One. It should be uniform across the board," he said.
"I would support any move for three to go up. You look at the number of ex-League sides in this division and you can see why there are plenty of managers who would advocate that scenario," Holdsworth told the Nottingham Evening Post. If you look at the league above, then there are certainly a number of clubs from our division who could compete at that level."There is a slightly bigger gap than the Conference would like to admit, but their main argument is fantastic in that no team has gone straight back down. However, the Conference always conveniently ignore that the majority of teams coming up (in particular the previous season's Champions) struggle against the drop.
Out of all the sides listed above that have come up, you can't really count Carlisle because they had only been relegated twelve months earlier. If you're going to be realistic, if the second worst team in the entire Football League can win promotion straight back, it doesn't say a lot about the division below. Out of everyone else, only Yeovil, Doncaster, Morecambe, Aldershot and Exeter haven't struggled against relegation back at one point.
One other major argument in favour of the Football League is that the vast majority of the teams coming up having considerably smaller followings than the teams replacing them, meaning added financial difficulties to the clubs from the division above.
Stevenage's average attendance last season was 2,589, considerably lower than the 4,428 average of Grimsby Town, the team they're replacing. Infact, looking into it more deeply, Grimsby Town's lowest attendance last season was still over 500 higher than Stevenage's average.
With City looking over their shoulders in two out of the last three seasons, a three up-three down system could potentially see an ill-fated battle against the drop, especially as several bigger and better teams that the Imps have gone down in recent years. Infact, if the three-up/three-down system had been in place in 2001/2, the Imps would have gone into non-League after finishing 22nd (the last season of one-up/one-down).
Realistically I think we're going to see three up-three down at some point, but a lot of the Conference's arguments for having it just don't weigh up against the League's argument for not having it. The biggest argument is the financial impact on the poorer clubs in League Two. For example, City in recent years have lost big crowds that Luton, Grimsby and Mansfield brought, only to see them replaced by teams that struggle to bring over 200.
There are 3 or 4 clubs in the Conference that could potentially hold their own in League Two, but other than that it is a poor division.
Do you think the Conference should get the extra places?
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I don't agree with a few things in the article. The champions of the Conference did not struggle against the drop last season. Burton even flirted with the play-offs before finishing comfortably mid-table. Play-off winners Torquay were there or there abouts, but even they had a good end of season run and were never in doubt of getting relegated.
Also your comment comparing Stevenage's attendance to Grimsby's is not really fair. You could have picked Darlington's (who also went down) attendance, but that wouldn't have backed up your argument would it as their average attendance was lower than Stevenage's.
Stevenage's average gate of around 2,500 actually beat the likes of Morecambe, Hereford, Barnet, Accrington, Macclesfield and even Dagenham who were promoted to League 1. It's not all about attendances.
managers get the boot very quickly now the turnover will become even quicker if this happens as chairmen trigger fingers if a team get off a poor start.
Here we go again!
Will we ever get the right man?
If you wanted me to compare their attendances to Stevenage in any other season then they would have had a much clearer reflection. For example, if you choose the few seasons before last season then their average attendances were 2,931 (went into administration late on and their attendances went into serious decline), 3,818 and 3,849.
Looking realistically at the Conference, the only team who have been up there year after year have been Stevenage, other than that the best sides have generally been former League sides. Look at the last few Playoff Finals for example, Oxford vs York (former League clubs), Torquay vs Cambridge (former League clubs), Exeter vs Cambridge (former League clubs), infact if you want to look deeper into it, out of the 16 teams that have come up since the introduction of the Playoff system, 9 had been former League clubs.
As I highlight in the article, several teams have gone down and come back up either straight away or the year afterwards.....but strangely that never actually seems to get mentioned when people from the Conference are saying the gap isn't that big. If teams that are so atrocious in League Two can go down and do extremely well, it doesn't say a lot about the division they've gone into.
Look at Torquay for example, battled relegation for three seasons in a row before eventually going down.....made the Playoffs at the first attempt and won them at the second. Not to forget that Carlisle and Shrewsbury also both came back up at the first attempt.
Also, it's funny you should mention how well Burton did. They lost more games than they won last season and only five sides lost more times at home than they did, not to forget being 5-3 up against Cheltenham with 5 minutes to go and losing 6-5. However, they did achieve something that only one other Conference winning side has ever achieved, they finished above the team that came up with them (the other being Chester in 2004/5 who finished 20th and Shrewsbury 21st).
Although I'm against it I think more regional leagues could happen sooner.
With leagues 1 and 2 plus the 3 conference leagues becoming reigionalised.
A format has already been suggested.
That mean much fewer promotion/relegation chances in the future.
Here we go again!
Will we ever get the right man?
I wouldn't personally mind regionalisation in some ways, afterall, less travelling involved but the problem would be that local derbies would soon lose their unique appeal and crowds would gradually go down.
3 up/down will probably happen in 2/3 seasons, but the regionalisation depends on if any clubs go bust over the next few years. If enough go bust then I can see regionalisation.
Here we go again!
Will we ever get the right man?
read in racing and football outlook paper,some fan say it should be 3 up 3 down in all leagues but get rid of the play-offs.
We'll be amongst the bottom 3 at some point in the next decade, you can almost guarantee it ...... and with Goal Droughton as our main striker next season, it may be sooner than we think?
I do think that quite a lot of people are deluded into the "everything will be alright" attitude. At the end of the day, we have spent 2 of the last 3 seasons battling relegation for a reason, we're just not that good and are gradually getting worse.
We've had good strikers, they've left and been replaced by poorer players. Other than Forrester, we haven't had a striker over the last few years that has been consistent. Stallard and Wright were both good in their first seasons but were then rubbish. John-Lewis was always rubbish, Patulea struggled to get in the side for a long time, Paul Connor was a waste of wages.....and not to forget Howe, Clarke and Fagan from last year.
There's not been a decent young striker at this club for a few years either. Andy Hutchinson has scored once in his 16 or so appearances and has otherwise done virtually nothing, whereas Adams has been very quiet whenever he's played.
Also, the "Sutton was a striker, he'll recruit a good one" attitude is very dangerous. Out of all the strikers he brought here, only Somma did well. Uwezu didn't do anything on the pitch, Broughton and Facey played 16 games between them and scored once, and that was about it.
The championship teams that get promoted to the premier are usually favourites for relegation and no-one seems bothered by it, so why worry about conference teams going down.
The only reasons I'd stop teams coming up is if their grounds and finances are not in good order, something that's not always happeing today and the reason poorly supported teams are being promoted now.
Two up two down is quite fair.
We should look at a total restructure outside the Premier and Championship with 3 regional feeder leagues. Tell me where the sense is in fixtures like Ebbsfleet v Barrow or Barrow v Eastbourne...I've even seen these fixtures midweek.
If we restructured to 3 regional feeder leagues then there would be more local derbies leading to bigger gates less travelling expenses but still retaining automatic promotion to the Champioship from each feeder league.