Season’s End – Where Now For Non-League Football?

English non-League football is in a parlous state, from the National League at Steps 1 and 2, down to more local leagues at Step 7. The National League has been able to play behind closed doors thanks to grants of £10million from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the National Lottery, while Steps 3 to 7, which began their programmes in September with fans allowed in grounds subject to limits on numbers, have been suspended since the end of October.

The current National League Structure came into being in 2017, but is
due an update with the addition of an eighth division at Step 4

With the grants now ended and fans not returning for the foreseeable future, National League clubs are reluctant to accept the loans they are being offered to continue playing and are now in the process of voting on whether or not to curtail the season.

Steps 3 to 6 meanwhile, has seen no football since 31^st October aside from a handful of Northern Premier League games. When Step 3 and below started their seasons in September, crowds were limited to between 200 and 600, but secondary income sources such as food and drink sales were much reduced due to tightened restrictions, or were simply not allowed at all.

Bury Town v Romford on 31st October 2020 was the last game I saw.

Until now no government money has been available to clubs below the National League, but last week it was announced that clubs at Steps 3 to 6 could apply for grants ranging from £7,500 at Step 6, up to £27,000 at Step 3. Naturally, the grant money can only be used for specific purposes such as lease or mortgage payments, loan repayments, and utility costs, and not for capital expenses such as work on stadiums, or players wages. [1]

The big question for Steps 3 to 6 now is how to complete this season. The decision last March to null and void 2019-20 was not universally popular; a decision to null and void 2020-21 would be more reasonable as some clubs have played just five of their scheduled 42 league games, but other options are up for consideration.

Reversing the null and void decision, reinstating results from 2019-20 and combining them with the results from 2020-21 to compile league tables based on points per game (PPG) is one idea. This solution, which would feature promotion but no relegation, would allow The Football Association to implement its restructuring programme, which was supposed to have been in place at the start of 2020-21. The chances of The FA reversing last season’s null and void decision, especially after successfully fighting a legal challenge to it, are virtually non-existent in my opinion.

Project Non League is calling for decision to null and void the 2019-20 season to be reversed.

Another alternative to treating 2020-21 as null and void would be to carry forward the results and continue the season from August, or whenever it is possible to start. This would give the leagues a fighting chance of completing a whole programme of matches before the end of April 2022, but on the other hand, with some clubs having played just 10% of their 2020-21 fixtures, it could be argued that too little of this season has been played to make that worthwhile.

There are some people who still believe that there is a chance of completing 2020-21 in full before August. One such is the respected journalist, broadcaster, and supporter of non-League football, Tony Incenzo. In a recent tweet, he suggested the following:

• Wait until all main vulnerable groups have been vaccinated & lockdown is lifted in March
• Re-start the season & play through April/May/June/July
• Have the close season in August
• Start 2021/22 season in mid-September

A Twitter poll that he is running shows that 53% of those that responded support this idea.

I’ve no axe to grind with Tony Incenzo, and I cannot help but admire his optimism, but I cannot share it. The speed with which the National Health Service is vaccinating people suggests that the main vulnerable groups may receive at least their first jab by the end of March, but protection is not conferred until a number of weeks after the second vaccination. This alone makes lifting lockdown in March unlikely, especially since the Prime Minister has said that now is not the time to ‘take your foot off the throat of the beast’ by easing restrictions too quickly.

Even if football could restart at the beginning of April, Steps 3 to 6 clubs would not have trained for five months, much longer than even a normal close season, and would probably want two weeks to get back up to speed.

Assuming that the leagues could restart on the third Saturday in April, there would be sixteen weeks to complete the seasons before the end of July. This would require The FA to allow the game to continue through June, a month in which organised football is not normally allowed in England.

Even then, would completing the season be possible? In the Isthmian League Premier Division, Bishop’s Stortford have 36 games to play, and Bowers & Pitsea have 37; it may be doable, but is one game every three days reasonable for players who are holding down full-time jobs? And this assumes no postponements for either the weather or the inevitable covid outbreaks.

There are also play-offs to consider, which would either extend the season into August or, if completed in July, reduce the number of weeks in which to complete the regular season to fifteen (up to 36 games in just 105 days).

To start again in mid-September would allow just six weeks for clubs, especially those who had been promoted, to strengthen their squads. Clubs would also want to undertake pitch maintenance; both these activities are usually spread over double the length of time that Tony Incenzo’s proposal would allow.

All of this is entirely hypothetical. When and under what constraints non-League football returns is entirely at the mercy of the country’s response to coronavirus and to the restrictions that the government sees fit to lift.

I cannot see non-League football below the National League resuming before August, in which case the best solution is probably to pick up 2020-21 again from where we left off in October, assuming that coronavirus restrictions allow (which is not a given).

Whichever way 2020-21 is completed, there has to be a plan to deal with a possible (some would say likely) suspension of the season come next winter.  Last summer the leagues had scenarios to deal with a variety of start dates, but none had plans in place to handle the season being suspended.

It is difficult for The FA or the leagues to provide any certainty or assurances in these unprecedented times, but once a decision is made on the outcome of 2020-21, flexible and adaptable plans for the next twelve months need to be written, otherwise, there is a risk that come January 2022, football will be faced with the same issues it faces now.

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[1] Full details of the grant scheme – The Football Winter Survival Package – can be found here: https://footballfoundation.org.uk/grant/football-winter-survival-package