Extension wins radio debate

The Evo-Stik Northern Premier League's Chairman Mark Harris hit the airwaves of BBC Leicestershire's Non-League Show on Tuesday night to debate the season's extension.

Unlike the Blues Square, Ryman and Evo-Stik Southern leagues, the Evo-Stik NPL have add an extra week to the 2012-13 calendar to ease the fixture congestion left by this winter's extreme weather conditions.

The BBC show's listeners heard Harris explain how the Evo-Stik NPL's clubs were facing the rescheduling of more than a fifth of the entire season's fixtures in the final month to finish on April 27, and how the decision to go it alone had been taken reluctantly in the best interests of everybody involved with the league.

Citing a duty of care to players, fans and officials facing major travel and other considerations, even with the extension, he said: "It was a major decision to take and we felt it was the right one. If we hadn't, we faced shoehorning more than 300 games into a four week period, or put it another way, about 20 per cent of the entire fixture programme into a month."

Harris, who is also Chairman at Witton Albion, went on to say that like many he believed the UK's unpredictable seasonal weather ruled out the mid winter breaks seen elsewhere.

The Evo-Stik's unilateral move had already sparked widespread debate in the media and on message boards and forums after it was announced last week. Sunday's edition of the Non-League Paper 'applauded' the Evo-Stik NPL and said it was essential to ensure fair play, echoing Harris' own comments on its pages that 'fatigue' was the last factor anyone wanted to see deciding the outcome of a season.

To listen to the show and the segement which is just after the 40 minute mark, follow this link: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01624bl