I wasn't talking about having a team currently good enough to stay up in the EFL. I'm talking about them being good for the EFL ..... or not. Harrogate's good for buying tea and cakes, but watching football? Sutton's a bit too Reginald Perrin. Crawley's a housing estate near an airport. Morecambe have held on for years, but not done much for the standard of the League, Salford's a city with no fans, no atmosphere and a few once famous footballers, at least Forest Green has an entirely different philosophy to any other club. Accrington's got history and John Coleman, but even Bumble Lloyd has washed up in North Yorkshire. Barrow is monochrome, however much you adjust your colour ........
The trope that more clubs going up would be better gets peddled every year by fans and non-league clubs likely to challenge for promotion but not achieve it. You don't hear many potentially third-worst EFL clubs voting, like turkeys, for the stuffing and the oven.
The truth is there is very little difference between even the best teams in League Two and ANY of the clubs avoiding the relegation zone in the National League and the reason is that the National League is forever growing stronger at the expense of the EFL. Clubs with long histories and excellent support come down and are sometimes replaced by formerly perennial non-leaguers who've won a couple of FA Cup games and attract 1500 fans to a little stadium built for 3,500 at most.
I don't want Boreham Wood or Bromley to go up much as I respect their performances on the field when it means Hartlepool and Rochdale are down alongside Oldham, Chesterfield, Southend, York and still Notts County. I fear any one of the three challengers to Notts County could beat them in a one-off game. County are very good and have a few very good players, but there are one or two glaring weaknesses, too. Off the field County and their fans should be in the EFL. The question about them is their massive debt.
I still say the EFL should be working on becoming 4 divisions of 20 each like the Premier League - 100 clubs instead of 92 - and then this eternal demand for an extra promotion place from the National League would be irrelevant. And Salts is right, I'll be wanting us to beat Bromley on Sunday and go on to win the Final. Of course I do. I'm a Spireite. But justice, fairness and their excellent season all cry out for County to do it. And common sense dictates that 24 teams in leagues when the season might more sensibly be only 36 weeks long is idiocy and not good for the standard of play. Unfortunately none of the EFL clubs likely to be re-arranged to what is going to seem like a relegation is going to be in favour of it, because they can't see past the ends of their Pinocchio noses.
The trope that more clubs going up would be better gets peddled every year by fans and non-league clubs likely to challenge for promotion but not achieve it. You don't hear many potentially third-worst EFL clubs voting, like turkeys, for the stuffing and the oven.
The truth is there is very little difference between even the best teams in League Two and ANY of the clubs avoiding the relegation zone in the National League and the reason is that the National League is forever growing stronger at the expense of the EFL. Clubs with long histories and excellent support come down and are sometimes replaced by formerly perennial non-leaguers who've won a couple of FA Cup games and attract 1500 fans to a little stadium built for 3,500 at most.
I don't want Boreham Wood or Bromley to go up much as I respect their performances on the field when it means Hartlepool and Rochdale are down alongside Oldham, Chesterfield, Southend, York and still Notts County. I fear any one of the three challengers to Notts County could beat them in a one-off game. County are very good and have a few very good players, but there are one or two glaring weaknesses, too. Off the field County and their fans should be in the EFL. The question about them is their massive debt.
I still say the EFL should be working on becoming 4 divisions of 20 each like the Premier League - 100 clubs instead of 92 - and then this eternal demand for an extra promotion place from the National League would be irrelevant. And Salts is right, I'll be wanting us to beat Bromley on Sunday and go on to win the Final. Of course I do. I'm a Spireite. But justice, fairness and their excellent season all cry out for County to do it. And common sense dictates that 24 teams in leagues when the season might more sensibly be only 36 weeks long is idiocy and not good for the standard of play. Unfortunately none of the EFL clubs likely to be re-arranged to what is going to seem like a relegation is going to be in favour of it, because they can't see past the ends of their Pinocchio noses.