The National League North & South season has been declared null & void

Following voting from clubs, the season has been ended with no promotions/relegations to or from the divisions.

The National League (Step 1) clubs have voted to continue their season


https://www.thenationalleague.org.uk/na ... esol-65151

Fylde 2022 lol

So.

More clubs in all 3 divisions voted to carry on playing (32) than to void the season (31) but the big majority for stopping in the NLN dragged the NLS down with them, despite their own vote being 12-9 in favour of carrying on.

Wondering how Darlo can continue in the FA trophy now that their season has ended? What does the rulebook say? And will there be brown paper envelopes full of cash for their furloughed players as an inducement to carry on training?

Bit worrying that as many as 7 NL sides voted to void the season. Will Dover carry on refusing to play games? What if some of the other 6 join them? Will there be normal promotion and relegation to the EFL if the NL becomes a sort of glorified mini-league? Fans of the bottom clubs in League 2 (Grimsby and Barrow) already hoping the EFL will refuse to allow relegation to the disfunctional NL.

The best suggestion (only from fans at the minute) is to form a League 2 North and a League 2 South for season 2021/22 and do away with the 'elite' National League altogether. That gets my vote!

Trophy will probably carry on as normal. Same way the Vase and some other amateur cups will carry on despite most Lower league football getting voided last season.

I'd be shocked to see all 7 refuse to play, I imagine if all 7 desperately needed or wanted N/V they'd of been more vocal like Dover and Kings Lynn were.

The reputation of the NL however will be heavily damaged. I'd like to see Vanarama pull sponsorship, that'd show them a thing or two.

VANARAMA must feel they’ve invested their money with an organisation who’s decision makers are asleep at the wheel. Some of the mistakes the league board have made are beyond belief.

Not taking minutes at the meeting with the government, or even recording it! Did they not realise a football season is longer than three months?

The time for total regionalisation of this league and for a broadcaster to make something of it. BTs coverage is shite. Enter C4 or C5?

if the BT contract is up for grabs next season i,d hope C4 or 5 could secure it or if not even sky would be better. for those with a smart tv you can pay for a single game on sky and not just 25 quid BT monthly pass just to really watch your own club once. would go with regionalisation if there were a decent number of promotion and relegation places up for grabs where we did not get the situation back in the div.3 north days where you seemed to get the same old teams year after year where most were hardly derby games either.

BT only renewed their deal with the NL last year. Hopefully Pools will be back in the EFL before it next comes up for renewal - in summer 2024. 3 seasons to get out of this shit show, failing that other pastimes are available.

shit, too old for other pastimes but could live with BT if they charged 15 notes for a game that i want to see. paying the extra if only for a month is pointless as i am never going to watch even wrexham v notts county or any other games at this level even for free.

Hornchurch haven't had a problem playing in the trophy only this season since their league went null & void ages ago. Are you wondering about them too?

We had it years ago , re-election. A far from ideal system but the best of a bad bunch of choices. It wasn't dreamt up without a great deal of thought, it was to protect the FL, though I appreciate things were abused. When it was replaced with automatic promotion, that protection was taken away. The FL is weaker now, and littered with clubs that survive because of a sugar daddy not a decent hardcore fanbase , likewise the NL is littered with poorly ran clubs with decent hardcore fanbases.

Automatic promotion , with one club going up I could live with, but 2? play offs? and people calling for a 5th div? no way.

At least in the past, only those non league clubs that thought they were both stable enough on and off the field used to apply.

This is at the heart of the problem, a smoking gun , that has been smoking since the late 1980s.

You're spot on FH. I can't see any down side for the teams that would be in those leagues. Less travel costs, less hotel costs, more "local derbies" = more revenue. Win, win all round.

Yes I see now that BT have it till 2024 which means the profile on the NL will be buried from the public until then.
I dont understand the politics of the FL and NL but if they could work together this could be made a lot more interesting with perhaps 3 relegated and play offs between the regionalised NL and possibly the 3 bottom FL2 club (or something like that).
Trying to maintain what we have post covid will be awful and probably unsustainable financially. Lets hope some discussions are taking place behind the scenes but I doubt it.

"It's not the end of the story. It's a big mess."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/56125565

...must be some wage bill to justify prices like these
...

https://fanbanter.co.uk/fans-slam-kings ... et-prices/

King's Lynn's chairman is in danger of becoming a cult figure, for all the wrong reasons:
https://twitter.com/Ollie_Bayliss/statu ... gr%5Etweet

bloody hate those early bird prices. there can be a number of reasons that after you buy a ticket to save a few quid you cannot attend. then the game is postponed late on and you cannot attend on the new date and have to go through all the hoops of getting a refund. then another one thats becoming popular is no tickets sold on the day of a match to away fans. you get there and the sodding place is half empty.

think the spelling of cult should be looked at.

Higher than Norwich! Lunacy.

So the chairman now says he needs £300,000 to see out the season - so where did the money go (given the three month grant etc)?

There must come a point where some of these clubs are clearly 'trading whilst insolvent', leading to personal liabilities and disqualifications as directors - creditors taking action - a full, wide ranging shitstorm which will undoubtedly lead to some innocents being hurt. So shouldn't the clubs which clearly can't cut the mustard get sent down the leagues, to a more financially appropriate level?

So bye bye Dover and Kings Lynn?

He is the kind of chairman you find VERY frequently at steps 2-4. Usually at money pumped clubs who spent a majority of their history at a lower level.

All the sympathy for clubs like Darlington and Dover, who would be sustainable if not for the pandemic. I have much less sympathy for teams like Slough and Kings Lynn.

Colne Dynamos, North Ferriby, Nuneaton Borough. The bubble always bursts in the end...

A bit of a generalisation , in fact a lot of a generalisation

Dorking Wanderers, Boreham Wood, Fylde. All have very vocal chairman and backers/owners, most probably to make up for the voices fans usually exhibit at clubs.

For someone who is seen by some people as a prominent businessman, Singh has been very quiet about the NL in comparison to other club chairmen.

I admit I did generalize about the demise of those three clubs though.

it is but for me its true. colne being a really good example with an owner spending a fortune on players, not a penny on the ground and then expecting burnley to allow em to grounshare on winning the league. burnley rightly told him where to go and then pulled his plug the first time things didn,t go his way.