Friendly at Dorking

Ah, that word integrity again!

Nice statement from Dulwich, esp the bit about being temporary custodians of their club

NB They are 27% owned by supporters with a very active supporters trust - not sure what the Football Supporters Association is saying about this although they are providing assistance to supporters trusts and community owned clubs behind the scenes

Dulwich I agree with; Chorley are being selfish which represents the attitude of Government. Unless there is fair funding for all, based on attendances then dozens of clubs will go into administration.

Beau Nash wrote:Dulwich I agree with; Chorley are being selfish which represents the attitude of Government.  Unless there is fair funding for all, based on attendances then dozens of clubs will go into administration.

It is the NL who dish out the funding to the clubs from the money received. They didnt allocate on the basis of attendances but on some banded algorithm that allegedly seemed to favour NL board member clubs.

Ollie Bayliss has tweeted that clubs will be able to vote 'from tomorrow' and that there will be separate majority votes for Step 1 and Step 2.

He has put up some charts showing the responses from clubs in the three divisions, although this doesn't necessarily indicate how they would vote. On the basis of this it looks likely that Step 1 would vote to continue, but Step 2 could go either way, with North seeming to favour stopping but South (where there have been fewer responses) leaning the other way.

Whatever the outcome, it is likely to leave a pretty divided league.

Whatever the outcome of the vote, this is not going to end very well.
A lot of unhappy clubs which ever way the vote goes.

kermit wrote:Whatever the outcome of the vote, this is not going to end very well.
A lot of unhappy clubs which ever way the vote goes.

Totally agree - whatever is decided this week you won’t have 66 clubs in unison saying that it’s been handled correctly.

This whole season has been a gamble basically:
The National League gambled on crowds being allowed back by the start.
They gambled that government funding would stretch longer.
Clubs gambled by continuing to sign decent players likely to require bigger wages, searching for a promotion despite having no idea if promotion would happen.
There was a gamble that not many games would be postponed because of positive cases, thus it would be feasible to fit in the season without much hassle.

And so on.

To me it wasn’t a time to take a chance. There should have been so many backup plans should things go wrong. I don’t mean there should be ‘plan S - if season ends in January with teams playing different number of games and relegation not likely, this should happen’, but just a loose interpretation. For example is there any way they could reduce it to each club has to play at least 75% of matches for PPG to come into force? Then the financial implications can be looked into.

My inkling is they’ll extend the suspension for our divisions, we will come back next week and still be none the wiser.

Division is often the result of poor leadership. Individual clubs' futures are far more important than completing a season which frankly should never have started. The NL should know full well that today's vote will be dominated by self interest and that many clubs will be unhappy with the outcome. When you are a member of an organisation you expect those who run it to make the difficult decisions on everyone's behalf and more often than not get them right.

Incidentally it was good to read one of the clubs mentioning the improvement in communication since the arrival of the interim CEO - presumably not part of the job description of the previous incumbent who he replaced.

Junior, your Plan S example above - I think that's exactly what should have been put in place pre-season. During the summer I assumed that after the fiasco it oversaw re 19/20 that the FA would have insisted that all levels of the game had contingency plans in place should the season be suspended/ended.

comrade powell wrote:Junior, your Plan S example above - I think that's exactly what should have been put in place pre-season. During the summer I assumed that after the fiasco it oversaw re 19/20 that the FA would have insisted that all levels of the game had contingency plans in place should the season be suspended/ended.

It's the thing which annoys me the most. Last season threw everyone and the National League couldn't win, they had no way to plan for it and there wasn't a straightforward fix. In some aspects they could have done better like their abysmal communications, but otherwise they had an incredibly tough task and I'm glad I wasn't one of the decision makers.

But for this season there should have been alarm bells in October when we went into a second lockdown, then a week later we were the first side to have a match postponed for positive tests with stacks of others following. Around then there should have been discussions, I expect we were only about six or seven matches in so if it had been declared null and void it wouldn't have had as much impact. The FA Trophy and Vase shouldn't have started in my opinion but I'm guessing there's some sort of rule that they have to take place.

Reading just now that vote hasn’t been sent to clubs yet. Apparently the league is planning a media PR campaign and there is a Change.org petition to try and get grants not loans. Further suspension I reckon in the offing.

How long will that all take? This all stinks of desperation, if we're off for another two weeks that's even less time to cram games in and by next month there will be further panic.

They need to do something decisive this week.

If the decision is to continue then the total number of league  games to be played should be reduced  to a more realistic level ( say 34).  There should be a stipulation that all  team plays each  other once  (20 games) and the remainder 14 games are played against  those  nearest to reduce travelling. Not a great advantage to us but beneficial to South East based sides.
Bit conflicted myself as to whether season hould continue but I was happy to have contributed to promotion play-off funding with the hope we would have been successful and be in higher league. If that had happened then we would still be playing so perhaps we should be continuing in NLS.
It seems that perhaps we want  success but not quite sure of committing the full  100%  to achieve it.

Maybe we should carry on and let  Bath rugby  take a break – Not sure even Mark’s records show how many weekends we have outscored them.

Junior, I think the discussions on contingency plans should have taken place long before the season started. The experts had warned all summer of the likelihood of a second wave of the pandemic. However, if the vote goes to end the season I have no problem with it being ruled null and void.

According to the Press Association there was a meeting on 17 November at which the National League claims it was told by the DCMS that “the second tranche of monies for January/February/March 2021 would be on the same principles as the initial tranche i.e. grants”. It appears that there are no minutes of the meeting...

The Yeovil chairman has come out and said that they need £750k to complete the season, and is going to vote for it to continue.

...to enable his club to be relegated?

My understanding is that it us unlikely we would be able to apply for a loan as it comes with strings such as a demand to be the primary creditor.

The National League has issued all of the clubs with four resolutions which, because of ‘legal reasons’ they have 28 days to vote on. One of them is a Special Resolution, which needs a 75% majority, and the other three are Ordinary Resolutions which only need a majority of more than 50%.

For Resolutions 1 and 4 the voting is as per before, each NL team having a vote and North and South getting a total of 4 votes each. Resolutions 2 and 3 the clubs get one vote each. If Resolution 1 (the Special Resolution) passes, Resolutions 2 and 3 will be counted, with Resolutions 4 disregarded; if Resolution 1 falls, Resolution 4 will be counted with Resolutions 2 and 3 disregarded.

If any of you are still alive by now the Resolutions are:

1 (all clubs)
That Resolution 2 about whether to end the 2020/21 playing season of the National League (Step 1) be taken only by clubs in the National League and that Resolution 3 about whether to end the 2020/21 playing season of the National League North and the National League South (Step 2) be taken only by clubs that play in the National League North or the National League South with votes cast for Resolution 3 being counted on a one member one vote basis for National League North and National League South clubs.

2 (National League only)
That, conditional upon Resolution 1 being passed, the 2020/21 playing season of the National League (Step 1) shall immediately end on the date this Resolution 2 is passed and be declared null and void and subject to the approval of the Fotball Association, those Regulations that provide for promotion and relegation to or from Step 1 be suspended for the 2020/21 playing season.

3 (North and South only)
That, conditional on Resolution 1 being passed, the 2020/21 playing season of the National League North and the National League South (Step 2) shall immediately end on the date this Resolution 3 is passed and be declared null and void and subject to the approval of the Football Association those Regulations that provide for promotion and relegation to and from Step 2 be suspended for the 2020/21 playing season.

4 (All clubs)
That conditional on Resolution 1 not being passed, the 2020/21 playing seasons of the National League North and the National League South (Step 2) shall immediately end on the date this Resolution 4 is passed and be declared null and void and subject to the approval of the Football Association, those Regulations that provide for promotion to and relegation from Step 1 and Step 2 be suspended for the 2020/21 playing season.

I would expect the clubs to want to vote on this sooner rather than later - I think the 28 days is a maximum.

Concord have already come out and said they will not resume playing on Saturday.

The irony here would seem that the money they received for the first three months would have covered most of the season for them based on crowds.

Les, I assume that the 28 days deadline is there to give the clubs sufficient time to understand what the resolutions mean.

comrade powell wrote:Les, I assume that the 28 days deadline is there to give the clubs sufficient time to understand what the resolutions mean.

A few people on Twitter have said the same thing! Apparently it is in the league rules that the clubs have 28 days to vote on resolutions - what isn’t clear is whether they can be passed within that time if all of the votes are in. It would seem logical that they would, because what would be the point of playing on for 28 days if after say 7 it was clear that the vote was to stop. Then I realise that I have just mentioned logic in relation to the dealings of the National League!

I’d guess that once the majority has been reached a result will be announced.

There’s debate on the NLS forum about how the NLN and NLS  8 votes are used. I remember asking about this when I was on the Board in relation to the vote to end last season. My understanding then was that the majority view carried all four votes unless it was a 50/50 split in which two would go each way. Someone on the forum is claiming if a quarter vote one way that carries one vote. I’ll be surprised if that’s the case.

yuffie wrote:Concord have already come out and said they will not resume playing on Saturday.

The irony here would seem that the money they received for the first three months would have covered most of the season for them based on crowds.

Their statement would have more substance if they even had a game this Saturday. Their scheduled opponents Oxford City are in the FA Trophy.

stillmanjunior wrote:

yuffie wrote:Concord have already come out and said they will not resume playing on Saturday.

The irony here would seem that the money they received for the first three months would have covered most of the season for them based on crowds.

Their statement would have more substance if they even had a game this Saturday. Their scheduled opponents  Oxford City are in the FA Trophy.

According to the fixtures on the NL website they have a re-arranged game at Hemel.

Their statement officially has more substance!

So we play on, incur costs and then are forced into taking a loan to cover them, and then the season is cancelled. Madness. We can't afford to do this.