In 2021, the lines between the lowest tier of league football and the highest tier of non-league football became more blurred than ever before. Phil Parkinson, whose previous two jobs had been in League One, was appointed by Wrexham. Dave Challinor, who had just been promoted to League Two with Hartlepool, left for the manager’s job at Stockport. Paul Mullin, League Two’s top scorer in Cambridge United’s promotion, dropped down two divisions. So too did Ben Tozer and Paddy Madden.
This new market of movement down the leagues as well as up raises questions about what “league” and “non-league” actually mean. Technically the terms meet the standard definitions. League Two is the bottom tier of the EFL – under one jurisdiction – and National League is the top tier of a separate body with a separate jurisdiction.
But by just about every other measure, the gap is virtually non-existent. There is clearly no longer any stigma about dropping into the National League. It is an excellent environment for the development of young players. In terms of attendances, eight clubs in League Two have average crowds this season of more than 5,000 compared to six in the National League.
In the FA Cup last season alone, 11 different league clubs were knocked out by non-league teams. Of the last 10 clubs to gain promotion from the National League, more of them (Lincoln City and Cheltenham) are now in League One than have been relegated back to non-league (Macclesfield) and the current top four in League Two contains three recently former National League clubs (Forest Green, Tranmere Rovers, Sutton United). In Macclesfield’s case, their demise was down to financial mismanagement that ultimately ended in liquidation.
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But the division has changed dramatically since Cheltenham’s title romp with 101 points. Standards have improved. More clubs are now fully professional. The average age of players in the division has decreased. So too has the average age of the coaches. More than half of the managers in the National League are aged 41 or under. For the likes of Ian Burchnall at Notts County, James Rowe at Chesterfield and Luke Garrard at Borehamwood, the National League provides the perfect stage to prove that you could thrive higher up the leagues.
This season’s promotion race in the National League is like no other. It has a mix of former EFL clubs (Notts County, Chesterfield, Dagenham & Redbridge) who have taken their time to get back on two feet, non-league stalwarts (Borehamwood, Bromley) a phoenix club (FC Halifax Town) and clubs under new owners with significant budgets (Wrexham, Stockport). The competition is ludicrous: the current top six have lost one of their last 30 combined matches. That fight is intensified by the salary cap that will be introduced from the start of next season.
But then this bottleneck was always inevitable. While there are four promotion spots from League Two to League One, there are only two out of the National League despite the gaps between the two divisions being measurably smaller. Even that second promotion place was only established in 2002/03, when the first National League playoff final was played.
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Unsurprisingly, most in the National League believe this to be an archaic system that incentivises mediocrity in League Two and fails to adequately reward sustainable improvement in the National League. But as Chesterfield manager Rowe pointed out to i last week, it would take agreement from EFL clubs for extra promotion places to be created and that requires turkeys to vote for Christmas. And so an impasse is reached.
But then should EFL clubs be so quick to vote against change? Part of the reason for clubs suffering after relegation to non-league is because the lower reaches of League Two allows for clubs to either coast dangerously as they acquiesce to slowly declining standards safe in the knowledge that there may well be two teams worse off than them, or for their owners to grow careless or disinterested.
And under the current rules, they become doubly damned when they are eventually relegated because they are thrust into a division with clubs of at least as high a level and with only one automatic promotion place to fight for. So they become stuck in suspension, waiting for a new dream to come along. Eleven of the league’s 23 clubs are former league sides.
Time has come for change, whether clubs are persuaded to vote for it or it is foisted upon them for the good of the game. There is simply no good reason why double the number of clubs are promoted from League Two as are relegated. The rise in standard, professionalism, coaching and budgets at the top end of non-league merits a shift in the rules. Both League Two and the National League would be better for it and, thus, so would English football as a whole.
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