Anyone take your fancy

http://www.ketteringtownfc.co.uk/story.php?story_id=887

Not the 1st and won't be the last.

Nice to have our club now debt free, working with it's means and not facing these kind of issues anymore.

Very short memories.

Ouch. The crunch has been coming at Kettering for some time, with their lease coming to an end at Rockingham Road and the move to Nene Park I can't imagine that's had a positive impact on their attendances. Perhaps we'll be renewing acquaintances with them sooner than we thought?

ted striker wrote:Ouch. Perhaps we'll be renewing acquaintances with them sooner than we thought?

Apparently not. The days of non league 'phoenix clubs' (Nuneaton, Farnborough etc) only dropping two divisions is over. Phoenix clubs will now have to start at level 5 (2 below us) at the very least. I've just stumbled across this article.

http://www.footballeconomy.com/content/phoenix-clubs-face-tougher-climate

Apparently it's now been confirmed in the FA Rule book. All I can say to the FA is well done! Fantastic decision!!!

del boy wrote:Phoenix clubs will now have to start at level 5 (2 below us) at the very least. I've just stumbled across this article.

http://www.footballeconomy.com/content/phoenix-clubs-face-tougher-climate

Apparently it's now been confirmed in the FA Rule book. All I can say to the FA is well done! Fantastic decision!!!

Good find Del Boy, and I agree, clubs should be forced to take a significant drop when they fold and reform. They shouldn't be able to regain their previous status in two or three seasons like Nuneaton did.

An interesting point at the end of that article: Step 5 is so hard to get out of. Clubs like Stratford Town, who were so close to the top of the Midland Alliance for several seasons but didn't manage to climb up when the Conference expanded, have not been able to take advantage of their strongest competitors going up, and they haven't really looked like getting promoted to the Southern League since.

I can’t say that I’m an expert at the level, but I believe that the lower down you go, the less simple and straight forward promotion and relegation issues are. League position alone is not enough to decide who progresses and who doesn’t.

The comment that I found quite interesting was re: Telford, Crawley & Stevenage. We moan about our poor support, normally due to the ‘new town’ apathy argument etc, but there are examples of new town clubs that have gone on to be way more successful than us. I know that Crawley isn’t exactly a model to follow, but they were more successful than us before their financial intervention.