League Football Betting: Going back in time for a successful model for the football league

English Football League / Nik Wardle / 21 April 2009 / Leave a Comment

Tired of hearing about low attendances and low gate receipts, the cost to travelling fans and financial meltdown at clubs in the football league, Nik Wardle suggests we revert to the old school North/South divide model....

EDF energy has used the 1970s as an inspiration for their new Eco 20:20 tariff, based on the old Economy 7. In the current recession, Football League clubs and their supporters could do with making savings themselves. One way to do this could be to go back even further than the 70s to the period 1921-1958 when the two bottom leagues were split into the Third Division South and the Third Division North.

Attendances are slipping across the board in the Football League, as fans struggle to be able to afford ticket and travel prices. In Football League One only four clubs (Leeds, Leicester, Huddersfield and MK Dons) have average attendances of over 10,000 and in Football League Two, only Bradford have achieved this figure. Accrington Stanley's average gate is less than 1,500.

Few clubs in the Football League are able to attract sizable sponsorship deals, so money through the gate is their prime source of income. It's a big enough ask to expect fans to have both the time and finances to go to every home game and even more of an ask for them to travel to away games, especially during mid-week. If there were more local fixtures it would surely boost the number of home and away fans attending due to geographical reasons and footballing rivalry.

As far as the clubs are concerned, policing and/or stewarding away sections is expensive and it must seem a bit of a waste if the section is sparsely occupied. Also, if there were more local games, the players and officials could travel to and from all league fixtures via coach, rather than having to shell out for hotel rooms and planes for certain long distance fixtures.

Favourites to join Charlton in being relegated from The Championship to League One next season are Southampton at [1.1] and Norwich at [1.6]. Neither would be thrilled at the prospect of playing at, say Hartlepool next season, nor should the Victoria Ground expect too many visitors from these clubs, should they go down.

Likewise many clubs in League One will be hoping that Exeter ([1.64]) don't achieve promotion from League Two, given their remote destination.

So, I suggest splitting League One and League Two into two regional leagues. The champions of each would be automatically promoted to The Championship with a play off system across both leagues sorting out the third promotion place.

If there were, for example, two southern teams and one northern team relegated from The Championship and two northern and one southern team promoted, then whichever team in Football League South that was closest to the north, would shift across leagues to keep numbers equal.

One team from each league would be relegated. It would have to be decided if the Conference clubs wished to keep their current format of having the Blue Square Premier and Blue Square North/Blue Square South the tier below or split the top league into two regional leagues.

Having more local games would almost certainly boost attendances and hence clubs would have more chance of staying afloat. More cash through the turnstiles for the clubs, more derby games and less travel costs all-round seems like an economic and exciting option for the Football League to me. And, like Eco 20:20, it would reduce the carbon footprint!