It is a hot topic not just in non-league at the moment, but also English football. Such is the momentum that it is gaining and the amount of spotlight that is currently on the subject, that a campaign has been launched entitled “3 Up”.
This refers to the National League ‘movement’ that involves a majority of non-league clubs throwing their support to three promotion places being made available for entry into League Two.
As part of the “3 Up” campaign, every National League club in the country wrote to the EFL (English Football League) board in February, throwing their support behind the idea.
Slow Progress But Impact Being Made
While talks are still very much ongoing, momentum has gained pace over the last few months. Indeed, the start of every National League fixture in the country was delayed by three minutes on October 15 as part of a peaceful protest, demonstrating how much in favour clubs were of this initiative. This is also set to repeat itself 15 November.
@joshtalksefl Newly proposed ‘3UP’ plan is a game changer. #nationalleague #leaguetwo #efl ♬ original sound – JoshTalksEFL
In order for this to become introduced, it would require a majority vote from clubs, not only in the NFL, but also the Championship though, this is something apparently, that has been met with positivity.
National League chair Jack Pearce has revealed: “Our 72 clubs simply won’t accept the current circumstances blocking them from parity and fairness with all the other professional teams in England.”
“Since launching 3UP, we have been contacted by a remarkable number of EFL clubs who are privately supportive of the change but haven’t even been given the chance as a group of clubs to formally discuss it,” he said.
What Would This Mean?
Over the last few years, we have seen several ambitious non-league clubs come close to promotion from the Conference, who have had to wait another year to earn promotion and, implementing the 3UP initiative could give these clubs a better chance of flourishing faster.
It can sometimes mean that clubs who narrowly miss out on promotion to the Conference (a notoriously hard league to get promoted from), see their best players leave, which means that they then need to start again and rebuild.
There is every reason to suggest that the National League becomes even more competitive, as more and more clubs vie for promotion. Every season there are probably around 12 to 14 clubs who believe that they genuinely have a chance of getting into a play-off spot, if things go well for them and they can stay injury-free.
Of course, there are only so many spots to go around. Usually, there are two clubs that run away with it and it sometimes works out that the team that finishes second – often significantly ahead of third place on points witnesses a dramatic collapse at the play-off stage, having been flying high all season.
Implementing this 3 UP campaign will mean that clubs are more fairly rewarded; especially the one that finishes in second place; which would then obviously be a guaranteed promotion spot.