Championship : three up and down League One: three up and four down League Two: four up and two down Conference: two up. Why not make it consistent with three up and down in all leagues. Your thoughts on this one.
I cant see the point of letting Conference sides to keep coming up, they don't offer anything. I say keep relegation and promotion to the football league from now on...
No because you will get some teams coming up without the grounds facility's plus they've already extended it from one up and one down to create a play off final.
It is to do with protectionism. Clubs back advance upwards but not out of the league. Four up from the old fourth division is good, but increasing the odds of going out of the league is voted against.
Very bad idea imo. Not a good idea to make the game closed to newcomers. And to say conference sides offer nothing I will counter that by suggesting you take a look at yeovil town's history since 2004.
If my memory serves me correctly the original system required the bottom team in the league to seek re-election and new teams rarely arrived as per today's promotion from the Conference. Basically the owners of all the other teams in the league had a vote on whether the bottom team stayed or were replaced with someone else from non-league clubs. I think the promotion/relegation system as it is now works very well but I do have a slight problem with the situation on the promotion from the Conference the way it stands as it does have the possibility of sending teams in to the hinterland where return is a difficult task. Why don't the Conference just promote a single team and let the 2nd and 3rd placed teams play a promotion/relegation decider against the bottom 2 in League 2? That would mean that either another team gets promoted from the Conference, or not, depending on the promotion/relegation playoff. That system would mean Rovers vs Gateshead and Torquay vs Cambridge would be the semi-final match ups with the home field advantage going to the existing League 2 teams. With this system all teams get a second chance to either get to stay in League 2 or give up their spot to one of the Conference play-off teams. I think it would probably stop the constant flow of some poor teams in to the Football League which only goes to dilute the pool of teams with necessary infrastructure to srvive, although there are always exceptions to those rules (ala Yeovil Town). It is hard enough already to survive in the lower divisions without having to experience the problems that our near neighbours will have to experience. A lot of the teams that are purported to be "up and comers" are financed in a lot of cases by possible dodgy owners and the thought of being replaced by one of these teams only to see them get in to troubles themselves must be frustrating to say the least.
It used to be the bottom 2 or bottom 4 that had to seek re-election and for years the likes of Workington, Barrow, Southport and others had an old boys pact where they never allowed new clubs into the league. That all changed when they allowed Hereford and Cambridge in during the early-mid 70's and then it became more of a common practice. I believe the club before that to be admitted were Oxford Utd sometime in the 60's when Accrington Stanley or Bradford Park Avenue went into serious decline ?
The "gas" came bottom in 1939, the war postponed decisions until 1945, every league side had to vote for them so they could stay in, guess who voted for them to stay, you've got it Bristol City FC and they were allowed to stay in. This tale of 90 odd years of unbroken history in the football league is bunkum, this is the 2nd time they have failed their fans.
Interesting opinions so far but everyone has avoided League One relegation. Why should this be four teams? It is grossly unfair that the third tier should be so vulnerable to relegation. This season every team below 12th was nowhere near safe until that last two weeks. Is this fair on League One?
I think it would be fair enough to change this to three. What difference would that have made this season in the league though? As in would all those below 12th still have been in danger until the last few weeks of the season?
Probably not much but its been a bit of a strange season. The top six were there all season followed by half a dozen who hoped for the play offs but never really troubled the top six. And then the rest of which City and Sheff U, the "big" clubs both looked doomed until well into 2014. In some ways three up and three down with play offs keeps interest going a lot longer but I am a traditionalist who believes that after nine months of slog the teams in the top three places should be promoted. And I also feel that four down from League One is unfair.
There certainly was a old boys act up until the mid 1970's. I remember these teams like Barrow and Workington being down the bottom year after year and never going down when I first got interested in football, all those years ago. In 1972, Hereford had shocked Newcastle in the cup. A couple of years later, Wimbledon got to 5th round after taking some notable scalps along the way and were elected. Wigan followed shortly after, but I remember each of the teams having to do something pretty monumental to get up. A lot of clubs that come up start off doing well. Some get to League 1 such as Stevenage and Crawley in recent years. Yeovil even made the championship last year, but they generally end up finding their own level, and one or two, notably Hereford and Barnet, end up back there. Personally, I think it is more refreshing to get new blood in. If there is no relegation, there is never any fear factor and that can have an impact on the quality of football. Imagine if there had been no relegation from League 1 this season. There would have been a lot less comments on these boards that for sure, but it would have been pretty boring I guess otherwise even if it was a tad worrying at times! Wimbledon and Wigan,I seem to remember playing a lot of yo-yo between league1 and 2 before finally moving up.
Yeovil were kept out of the league by Northern nepotism. Bath and Yeovil could have been league clubs. Yeovil made it decades later than they should have. Four up is good as it encourages progression. Four down would further progression further. There are a lot of clubs down the pyramid who can operate in the league but are hampered by two up two down favouring certain clubs like it will Rovers, or should.
To say Conference teams offer nothing is a bit forgetful. AFC Wimbledon, Newport, Burton, Dag & Red, Fleetwood, Crawley... All these teams were non-league in the last 5 years, and almost all finished better than Portsmouth! The game changes, that's what makes it accessible to everyone around the country. Bristol City will be in League One forever if we decide to close the game off to people we don't deem good enough to grow. A good example of this is Yeovil Town, a small club with a bigger average attendance than what Bristol Rovers and their supposed "fantastic supporters" could muster up, despite them being in a far more central location.
