Alex wrote:

Why do we need these dates?

We will have won the league 👍👍👍

                                  """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""

Hope so Alex, but it's not a foregone conclusion. I would say that realistically our chances of automatic promotion are 50/50 with Halesowen having an equal chance of finishing top.
My fear is that if Halesowen get ahead of us, they might stay there.
And that is why I feel we have to win at Chasetown.

It would be interesting to see what odds betting companies would give for ourselves, Halesowen and Chasetown.
Football Web Pages predicted final table has Halesowen finishing top.

Chasetown probably have the most difficult run in but they know that if they beat Ilkeston this week and Halesowen next week then they will be in with a real chance of stealing the automatic promotion spot.




 

Matchman wrote:

NPL Play-Off Dates Confirmed


 about 4 hours ago    By James Gordon

The dates for the play-offs involving Pitching In Northern Premier League clubs have been confirmed.
The NPL Premier Division play-off final will take place on Monday May 2, with the winner earning promotion to National League North.



The semi-finals for all four NPL divisions - Premier, East, Midlands and West - will take place on Tuesday April 26, after the final round of fixtures on Saturday April 23.
The finals for the three step four divisions will take place on Saturday April 30.

All play-off finals will be played at the home ground of the highest ranked team.The champions and play-off winners from the East, Midlands and West Divisions will gain promotion to step three.


The NPL has since adopted a third division at step four as part of the National League System re-structure. The inter-step play-off matches, which will involve some of the teams that finish third bottom in the step four divisions against teams from step five, will also take place on April 30.

The two teams with the best points per game that finish third bottom across the eight step four divisions will avoid the inter step play-offs.The remaining six will go up against the six worst ranked (by PPG) runners-up from step five leagues.


In terms of relegation from the Premier Division, the bottom two teams will go down.That is also the case across the other three divisions at step three - Southern League Premier Central, Southern League Premier South and Isthmian Premier.

The team that finishes third bottom with the worst PPG across the four divisions will also be relegated

 

                                              ****************************************************************************************

On the chance that we may be playing at Step 3 next season I've been looking at the make up of the four Step 3 Leagues. 

At present there are 87 Step 3 teams :
Northern Prem      22 teams
Isthmian                22 teams
Southern Central  21 teams 
Southern South    22 teams

According to the NPL information above  9 teams will be relegated (ie the bottom two from each division plus one team finishing third bottom ( the one with to worst points per game)

They will be replaced by 16 teams from Step 4 (Champions and Playoff winners of the eight Step 4 leagues)

That means there would be 94 teams at Step 3 next season  (87 from this season -9 relegated +16 promoted)

That would mean three step 3 leagues of 24 teams and one of 22 teams which seems a bit odd.

If my understanding is correct then if we are promoted we will have either four or eight more matches than this season.




 

Last edited by Matchman (26/3/2022 9:37 AM)

.

Ollie Bayliss posted this a few days ago



With the non-league season heading towards a conclusion, here's a reminder of how promotion & relegation will work this season. Below, is the latest FA communication  explaining how it will work. The FA "reserve the right to vary this approach".  


[/url] [url=https://twitter.com/Ollie_Bayliss/status/1504104808457904133/photo/2]




:

 

Last edited by Matchman (27/3/2022 3:32 PM)