The Purest Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 With every team suffering the same fate every year with fixture backlogs caused by the weather, isn't it time the FA and Spartan league started looking at reducing the amount of league fixtures by increasing the league with another division? 22 teams in the Prem play 42 games + ex amount of cups! 21 teams in Div One play 40 games + ex amount of cups! 16 teams in Div Two play 30 games + ex amount of cups! (but this amount of league games would be about right)! Now in the second week of March and top of the Premier Div, Kings Langley have played 29 out of their 42 games!! The season finishes end of April. Some teams will effectively be playing three games a week shortly (and more bad weather is forecast!!). Non League football is dying. Players are turning their backs on the game in droves and clubs are finding it increasingly more difficult to sustain any stability with the ever increasing financial commitment. The biggest issue is midweek games and every club at some point in the season is effected. An even bigger issue is when a club who still has ex-amount of games to play at the end of season has nothing to play for. The SSML committee need to look at reducing the amount of teams in each league by increasing Divisions and somehow make it that its more regional based with a maximum of 30 games a season. The quality of the league across the board has deteriorated massively in the last two years and unless something is done it will continue to deteriorate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Winslow Boy Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 Cannot disagree with any of that. Ground grading across 4 divisions could be problematic, also not sure how 4 divsions would work within the pyramid at South mids unless there was a Prem and then two regionalise East and west divisions like Hellenic at step 6 then a division the 4 league at step 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Backroom1 Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 We at WGC will have played at least 57 games by the end of the season, if not 58. That is a lot of games! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munchkin Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 I might be wrong but don't the FA set the number of clubs in each division at Step 5? Agree with your sentiment, however you would need 70 clubs to operate 3 divisons of 18 and one of 16. Even at 16 each you need 64. I would guess this isn't an SSMFL problem and would require a whole restructure, which the FA would probably cock up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thecoldend Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 sounds a good idea. anything to help clubs out will be good. it'll be difficult to arrange. I think the FA and league's need to look at ground grading which are pretty stringent at this level when mostly under 100 or 50 people attend. As long as ground has toilets, Bar, decent changing rooms and some sort of small stand I think that's okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitley Bay Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 With every team suffering the same fate every year with fixture backlogs caused by the weather, isn't it time the FA and Spartan league started looking at reducing the amount of league fixtures by increasing the league with another division? 22 teams in the Prem play 42 games + ex amount of cups! Now in the second week of March and top of the Premier Div, Kings Langley have played 29 out of their 42 games!! The season finishes end of April. The SSML committee need to look at reducing the amount of teams in each league by increasing Divisions and somehow make it that its more regional based with a maximum of 30 games a season. Sorry your suggestions make no sense whatsoever, as Kings Langley would now have just one game to play - and London Tigers would have the most games to play - four!! Season over by mid-March........,.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Lone Ranger Posted March 9, 2015 Share Posted March 9, 2015 I don't think there is anything wrong with a few extra games. I'm sure players would agree to play games rather than train anyways. I'm sure we had the discussion of games last season when I'm sure I talked about how Cockfosters had played 31 games in the last 60 days of the season including 2 cup finals and wins. If they can go and do that and play all of those then I don't see a problem this season. Saturday Tuesday and Thursdays. Nothing wrong with that. If you want to win non league leagues you have to have a squad that can deal with that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munchkin Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Sorry your suggestions make no sense whatsoever, as Kings Langley would now have just one game to play - and London Tigers would have the most games to play - four!! Season over by mid-March........,.. Not really a valid comparison because some games played midweek this season would not have been played yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Whitley Bay Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 Not really a valid comparison because some games played midweek this season would not have been played yet.Why not? The original post was not about not playing midweek football but about fixture backlogs as KLFC had thirteen League games to play in seven weeks. Therefore, whilst a 'slight' reduction in League sizes might achieve the original ideas of not having too many games to squeeze in at the end of the season, e.g. Divisions of twenty and thirty-eight games, any smaller divisions and posters would be asking the SSMFL to arrange an end of season competition for the remaining Saturdays!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munchkin Posted March 10, 2015 Share Posted March 10, 2015 OP said biggest issue is midweek games. There are about 40 odd saturdays during a season. Once you add in average of 4/5 cups per club assuming a simple approach it could work. However, something the OP doesn't consider is that due to ground shares, reserves, cricket, and everything else the fixtures Secretary has to deal with, reducing clubs in each division would increase potential clashes with less scope for accommodating teams and issues with free Saturdays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Uncle T Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 The leagues are too big, 22 teams for people who have to go to work all week is too much. And again surely we need some quality and rest between games. I would think that 18 teams at Step 5 is ample. Midweek football should be about getting games that are called off for bad weather and cup games. 18 teams would mean 34 league games with at least two FA games makes 36 games in 38 weeks which makes some sense and then we can deal with bad weather. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nat Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 Sorry your suggestions make no sense whatsoever, as Kings Langley would now have just one game to play - and London Tigers would have the most games to play - four!! Season over by mid-March........,.. Good. Might get more footballers playing cricket. Start the season later, in September as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Munchkin Posted March 14, 2015 Share Posted March 14, 2015 The leagues are too big, 22 teams for people who have to go to work all week is too much. And again surely we need some quality and rest between games. I would think that 18 teams at Step 5 is ample. Midweek football should be about getting games that are called off for bad weather and cup games. 18 teams would mean 34 league games with at least two FA games makes 36 games in 38 weeks which makes some sense and then we can deal with bad weather. Spot on, it would also create more competition at Step 7. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
britman Posted March 17, 2015 Share Posted March 17, 2015 The leagues are too big, 22 teams for people who have to go to work all week is too much. And again surely we need some quality and rest between games. I would think that 18 teams at Step 5 is ample. Midweek football should be about getting games that are called off for bad weather and cup games. 18 teams would mean 34 league games with at least two FA games makes 36 games in 38 weeks which makes some sense and then we can deal with bad weather. Doesn't stop those Saturday players still playing on their Sunday teams though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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