Split League 2 North and South

Quoted from mimma

All this talk of regionalism has mainly come about because of this pandemic. The FA is sat on a fortune that it has creamed off clubs so why can't it step in and give some back to the clubs from where it came to help them out?

As mentioned above does anyone know what sort of figure out of our budget we are talking about? Clubs like Plymouth,Exeter, and Carlisle that will have high travel costs compared to say Walsall. They are the ones to benefit the most.

I don't disagree about the FA but the regional issue has been around a while as clubs have been struggling with the budgets like Macc and Bury etc., it goes along with a return to part time too which really could be a possibility for some perhaps?

I’m not sure travel costs and the like are what send clubs like bury and Macclesfield to the wall.

I understand it’s not cheap and I know when Portsmouth we’re going to excrement they were still having overnight stays, using planes etc to travel to games, even as they plummeted down the leagues, that’s irresponsible. In terms of Bury and the likes I’d imagine it’s the over spend on wages and the owners taking more out than goes in essentially.

I am not interested in any other club only how it would effect Grimsby.

At the moment we have to travel to Plymouth have an overnight stop and get nothing from the game money wise that is just one of a few long trips.

When we take hundreds or thousands to an away game we get nothing money wise again.

So when we play out home games would we get a bigger gate meaning more money if we played Plymouth or Harrogate ?

Not sure what would be best we need an accountant to do the figures and tell us.

They had Div 3 North and South in the olden days. What was the reason for changing to the current structure?

I’d argue that we’re likely to get more away fans with Exeter and Plymouth in our league than someone like Harrogate, Barrow etc...so if that’s a concern then I’d suggest we keep it as is.

I appreciate town take large followings in recent years and we don’t get the same in return but that’s similar for most clubs.

A fair few of our exiled fans would miss out on a fair few games too. I know the other year when they calibrated the north and south divisions lower down the pyramid some clubs got stung because of how they’d calculated the numbers and drawn the line etc.

Just leave it alone...there’s nothing wrong with it as is...

You could have a regionalised League 2 with 12 teams, everyone plays each other 4 times. I'm not advocating for that but it would be better than combining league 2 with the conference.

Quoted from grimsby pete

When we take hundreds or thousands to an away game we get nothing money wise again.

Not strictly true - we get a small percentage (5?) of tickets sold via our ticket office.

Going back 60 years.

Back to the "good old days" eh Der Heil?

Didn't work then (which is why they got rid of it), won't work now.

Quoted from TheRonRaffertyFanClub

The other issue is gates isn't it? There are more local derbies and more likelihood of away fans traveling the shorter distances. This could be better economically and lead to better atmospheres than some of those games with 25 away fans rattling round the Osmond Corner?

I don't know, just speculating Kingston.

Promotion and relegation could be an issue in keeping a balance of North and South but it still has to be better than Hartlepool at Exeter. It just has to be assessed each season as they do now and as they did in the Olden Days!

We’re all speculating RRFC.

The attendances might creep up a bit, depending on who is in our division. I can’t imagine the likes of Harrogate or Southport bringing many. Pools, Chesterfield, Notts etc would.

Longer term it might weaken the ties that many exiles and descendants have for the club if they’re not in the northern area not actually having recently enjoyed the experience of being at the match in person. It might not mean much in terms of money though. Who knows.

League Two and Conference merge a complete no go for me, for every lost Orient or Plymouth we'd gain a Fylde or Harrogate, but at best, if it was a League One / League Two regionalised set up, what about promotion? Champions go up from both North and South plus the winners of a play-off system where the North and South winners play at Wembley for the remaining third promotion spot? The Championship aren't going to offer more relegation places. A year or two of local derbies then stagnation and boredom will set in with fans having wanderlust dreams of rural Devon, Sussex and Gloucestershire and meeting up with exiles. Even when you look at best case scenarios, regional leagues in the EFL aren't going to work and club travel costs are a complete red herring accounting for way less than 5% of club overheads as it stands and regional potential savings accounting for less than 1%..

The EFL should stop tinkering with anything and everything whenever they get the chance and put forward a stronger case to the Premier League for a higher percentage share of TV money, and at the same time, clamp down harder on FFP rule breakers..