The unofficial AFC Rushden & Diamonds messageboard

The question is should a Step 3 club be reprieved or should their place go to the team that finished second (Royston) or to the team that were play off runners up? Whilst I would very much like it to be the latter, in all fairness it should go to Royston.

I also believe that any team that is in contention for promotion (either by automatic or play offs) by mid February should be obliged to declare their intentions if they do not want promotion by Feb 28th. This year Royston would have had automatic and Chalfont should have been allowed to participate in the play offs.

The FA already stipulate that clubs must have ground grading in place by 31st March, so they should also be obliged to state their intentions in fairness to the other contenders. On the last day of this season any one of four teams could have made 6th place, but none of them could have made the 5th spot. So how seriously did they take that last game?

I did also read somewhere that the FA are not happy to reprieve teams and would prefer teams to be promoted when possible.

Currently the next in line for promotion of Step 5 clubs that finished 2nd in their respective league is Godmanchester followed by Alvechurch.....which could help move us back to the SLC.

sussexdiamond wrote:The question is should a Step 3 club be reprieved or should their place go to the team that finished second (Royston) or to the team that were play off runners up? Whilst I would very much like it to be the latter, in all fairness it should go to Royston.

I also believe that any team that is in contention for promotion (either by automatic or play offs) by mid February should be obliged to declare their intentions if they do not want promotion by Feb 28th. This year Royston would have had automatic and Chalfont should have been allowed to participate in the play offs.

The FA already stipulate that clubs must have ground grading in place by 31st March, so they should also be obliged to state their intentions in fairness to the other contenders. On the last day of this season any one of four teams could have made 6th place, but none of them could have made the 5th spot. So how seriously did they take that last game?

I did also read somewhere that the FA are not happy to reprieve teams and would prefer teams to be promoted when possible.

Currently the next in line for promotion of Step 5 clubs that finished 2nd in their respective league is Godmanchester followed by Alvechurch.....which could help move us back to the SLC.

Unfortunately they have always gone for reprieves rather than extra promotions in the past, which is wrong in my view. This is different though, I don't think anyone has ever turned down promotion from Step 4 before.
Can't see what this has to do with promotion from Step 5, unless the suggestion is that Kings Langley are folding.

As has been said if KL were unable to fulfil their obligations at Step 3 the place should go to Royston if they look to promote rather than reprieve.

Think the rumours about KL were sparked by the resignation of the chairman who openly said they need a bigger money man to make next season work for them. Think he's staying put until they find an appropriate buyer to support them at step 3 - they could always take the promotion now and if things don't work out ask the Southern League to give them an unspecified mid-season break while they sort their finances out - apparently it's been done before...

I think if we are moved to the Northern League South it will present a good challenge for us and will be nice to see us take on new teams and visit new locations and better grounds. It'll take a while to adjust and do our homework on who the big threats are, but once we're settled hopefully we can, like last season, push for a place in or around the play-offs. If we keep the same coaching set up and nucleus of the squad we have every reason to be optimistic.

According to the NLM Forum, 'provisional' allocations to Step 4 leagues may be known as early as 12th May.