NWCFL Chairman: We are finally closer to the perfect pyramid

Paul Lawler, North West Counties League Chairman

IT’S POSITIVE news particularly for those clubs who have worked so hard over the last couple of years without any rewards. In the regional feeder leagues, the clubs waiting to come up into the system and have been blocked through no fault of their own.

I wouldn’t have wanted to see a third season without any movement for clubs because I don’t think that’s good for football.

We asked The FA 15 years ago to consider the perfect pyramid structure and it was dismissed, but we’ve finally almost got there!

Allowing clubs to apply is important, it allows those clubs who are in a position to go up to take those places. Those that don’t feel they’re in a position to go up don’t have to.

I think we’ve got nine or ten applicants at the moment from Step 7 from this season and last. I hope those clubs in the strongest positions will come up. We’re going to have a few vacancies which hopefully allows us to accommodate everybody we need to.

At the moment, under the proposal, six teams will be promoted from our two Step 6 divisions so that should create the vacancies. We’re quite fortunate in that because we run two Step 6 divisions we can swap teams around.

The only thing I’m disappointed at which I had requested is for clubs to be able to ask for voluntary relegation if they needed to. We know a lot of clubs have been crippled by Covid and some might struggle at the Step they are at. My concern is things might really hit home over the next couple of seasons.

The other one is filling vacancies further up the pyramid as well which seems a bit of a missed opportunity.

We help our clubs get into a strong position to progress when they go from Step 5 to Step 4 so it’s not a huge leap. We tend to operate on a basis as if we were a NPL league. We’ll always try to help our clubs.

I would expect our clubs to all accept the opportunity that’s presented to them. We’ll be disappointed to lose three of them and we’ve missed out on celebrating their success at the end of the season.