Welcoming the new clubs

Following the League’s AGM, the constitution of all divisions has confirmed. One novel difference is the new addition of a Midlands Division, which gives the NPL a third 1st Division, and pushes the League’s boundaries further southwards, well into East Anglia and the Midlands, as well as new clubs for both East and West Divisions.

This is a series of articles that will first highlight the League’s new teams, reintroduce others who are returning, focus on existing members and remember the other clubs that have been part of the NPL since 1968.

After last season’s curtailment of the League, points per game records (PPG or pt/g) have finally brought about the delayed expansion of the Northern Premier for the coming ‘21-22 season. The 20 new clubs will be welcomed with open arms and boost current NPL numbers up to 81, one short of the theoretical maximum allowed for a Step 3 and 4 Trident League.

The organisation of 20 clubs, both new and current, into the new Midlands Division brings back six teams that have played in the NPL before, but presents 14 new clubs with new opportunities. The increase expands the geographical extent to the League’s widest spread ever. Additionally, it increases the total number of clubs who have been members of the Northern Premier League since 1968 up to 193.

Over a number of years changes have taken place to facilitate this expansion of the League in line with the FA’s thinking about the production of a ‘purer’ pyramid. Now all three Trident Leagues have additional divisions so that the movement of clubs up and down by promotion or relegation becomes part of a reasonably, seamless transfer. Ultimately, a more geographically friendly set-up should exist, particularly in boundary regions.

The number of clubs from the North-East has now grown to eight, the highest it has ever been at one time. East of the Pennines there are 15 teams, principally in the East Division, and West of the divide 27 clubs, mainly in the West Division - although this boundary is movable, sometimes pitching a club into a division it feels is not ‘traditional’. Such is the Pyramid of Football in the 2020s!

Over the years the ‘home’ area of the League has expanded geographically to encompass clubs who inhabited leagues in the Midlands. In many ways this was inevitable, since all the clubs from the old Midlands Counties League applied for membership in 1966; and it often became an aspiration to ‘move up’ to the NPL. As the Northern Premier shifted Southwards in the evolving pyramid, clubs from the bottom end of the Pennines saw it as the obvious league to move into.

As this is part of a sequence of articles that seeks to first focus on our new clubs, to highlight existing and former teams, from A-Y - thanks to new arrivals Yaxley and Yorkshire Amateur! We surely all hope that some form of normality ensues from August and that a full season can be completed by May 2022, free from the types of encumbrances we’ve seen in the last two Covid-19 interrupted ones.

By Dom McKenzie