Last week I set out the challenges that I see facing grassroots football. From players to volunteers, Clubs to Leagues, the cost-of-living crisis and increasing apathy towards the lowest levels of the non-league game, represent a socio-economic tsunami that threatens to undermine the proud traditions of the National League System and the celebrated non-league Pyramid. In this weeks article I consider what footballs authorities can do to address these challenges, from the FA at Wembley to the volunteers running the non-league game.

One of the central motivations behind the Football Associations restructure of the non-league Pyramid in 2021 was to “alleviate the challenges with driving times/distances in the North East” at Step 4, the level above the Western League’s Premier Division, with the 240 mile trip between Peterborough and Morpeth given as an example. Notwithstanding the fact that Peterborough is 216 miles from Morpeth, the distances created by the FA’s restructuring at Step 5 come within 10 miles of alleviating the “challenges with driving times/distances in the North East” by replicating the same problem in the Toolstation Western League.

Following the collapse of the proposed merger between the South West Peninsula League and the Western League, the FA have belatedly undertaken their own working group to address the “geographically challenging” South West. However, despite Clubs apparent support for splitting the current Western League Premier Division footprint into two Divisions, an FA statement made in March this year reaffirmed the Governing bodies commitment “to create consistency at each Step level of the NLS pyramid”, throwing into question their appetite for creating an additional Step 5 division and the “special” regulations it would require.

In the absence of leadership from the FA, Clubs and players will inevitably look for comfort from their League administrators. Yet in a world where administrative authority has been systematically seeded away from the Leagues by the FA, it is hard to see where they have the opportunity to meaningfully intervene. Leagues now have their constitutions, the teams allocated to compete in their competitions, dictated by the FA. Even the Standardised Rules of the competitions are, as the name suggests, standardised across all Leagues and dictated by the FA. For Western League Clubs competing at Steps 5 and 6, disciplinary matters have become almost the sole domain of the County FA’s, although I’d struggle to see anyone making a case for fining Clubs out of this recruitment and retention crisis.

This leaves fixture compilation as the main mechanism Leagues can use to manage the time and travel commitments that players and Club volunteers are wrestling with at the grassroots of the game. Long distance travel on a Saturday is an easy concept to understand, ensuring lengthy journeys are not undertaken mid-week, but from that point on the waters become increasingly muddied by the implications of front-loading fixtures before the winter months. Whilst ensuring games have the best chance of being played, the fear of not playing brings with it the unintended consequence of travel when the roads are at their most congested in the Summer months, as well as saturating spectators and players alike with Saturday-Midweek-Saturday matches.

Next week, my final article will consider what the Clubs themselves can do to help non-league football become more responsive to the challenges faced by people watching, volunteering or playing our beautiful game in 2023. Club volunteers, like money, don’t grow on trees and an ever-decreasing player pool suggests that Clubs will need to do things differently if they are to avoid the FA inevitably restructuring the bottom end of the Pyramid out of existence.

Ian Nockolds