As Stockport County prepare for their return to the Football League after winning the National League title, and with the play-offs due to get underway, the debate for an extra promotion/relegation between League Two and non league's top tier has predictably gathered momentum
With Scunthorpe United being relegated from League Two and Maidstone United winning National League South, not to mention the possibility of York City successfully navigating their way through the National League play-offs, the National League could have a distinct late-1980s/early 1990s 'old' Division Four feel to it in 2022-23.
In addition to Scunny being relegated from the EFL, Oldham Athletic have also become the first ever team to go from the Premier League to non-league since the Premier League's inception in 1992.
So, with that in mind, now certainly seems to be a good time to re-examine whether the number of promotion spots available between League Two and the National League should be increased or not.
Automatic promotion between the 'old' Division Four - now League Two - and the GM Vauxhall Conference, now the Vanarama National League, was first introduced in the 1986-87 season and the number of promotion and relegation places increased to two in the 2002-03 campaign - 16 years later.
However, two decades on from the introduction of that extra promotion spot, could it finally be time for three up, three down between League Two and the National League to come into being?
As a league, the National League is almost fully professional, and contained clubs such as Stockport County, Wrexham, Notts County and Grimsby Town in the 2021-22 season. In fact, you could say that the only club in League Two who can arguably be described as being bigger than any in League Two in terms of size and support is Bradford City.
Nevertheless, asking League Two clubs to agree to an extra relegation spot is akin to asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. For all clubs involved, relegation from the EFL means a loss of TV revenue and solidarity payments from the Premier League as well as the loss of funding for their youth development programme.
With this in mind in order to get the EFL to agree to a third relegation spot it is likely that you would need to offer them something in return.
One way of doing this would be to introduce a second automatic promotion spot for the National League and invite the team who finishes third from bottom in League Two to compete in the present National League play-off system. This plan would the team in 22nd in League Two facing the winner of the eliminator between whoever finishes 5th and 6th in the National League. Should the 22nd placed side in League Two progress they would then reach the final where they would have the opportunity to preserve their Football League status by winning at Wembley.
Under these proposals, not only would they receive the gate money from a home play-off semi-final, they would also have the chance to earn further revenue from appearing in the National League play-off final. One potential criticism of this plan could be that it might be seen as a way of rewarding failure, but equally it could be argued that winning a play-off final this way could potentially help to reinvigorate a club who have experienced many years of struggle.
Another factor that this takes into account is that in recent years a couple of teams - Wycombe Wanderers (2013-14) and Morecambe (2019-20) - have finished 22nd in League Two before bouncing back to reach the League Two play-offs in the following season. Morecambe even managed to win the 2020-21 League Two play-offs under Derek Adams after finishing 22nd in the previous season.
In the original incarnation of the Football League play-offs in the mid-1980s, the highest place team in the relegation zone of the league above had the chance to earn a reprieve at the end of the season. A similar system also currently exists in the Scottish Football League.
Whether the Football League would agree to implement it remains to be seen, but give and take might be needed to make an extra promotion place from the National League a reality.
