There is nothing like a cold Tuesday morning on a busy London train carriage to stoke the fires of discontent, but you can rest assured we aren’t about to start the revolution. With a Johnstone’s Paint Trophy Area Semi-Final to contemplate, we’ll keep this one short. Now, do you remember the Football Conference? It was a lovely old place that we used to knock around in before we decided we preferred the look of the League.
Our old chum Richard Money has made his views known to the local BBC radio station on that familiar old chestnut – increasing the number of clubs promoted from the Conference to the Football League. The two-up, two-down system has been in place for 10 years now – and you may recall the hoops that were jumped through to achieve that. Now the clamour is for three-up. Our success is used in some quarters as justification.
Money said: “Somebody somewhere must, must look at the rules. They are so outdated it is unreal. To have one team automatically promoted from this league is a nonsense, and it has to change.”
Now, Cambridge United were relegated to the Conference in 2005. This means they were in the League when two-up was finally given the go ahead. According to archive media we can find from that time, two-up was initially rejected in 2001 by a vote of 70-2. Unless the club has renamed itself from Wycombe or Rushden, seems they were against the proposal at that point at voted accordingly. Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas after all.
More confusing is that the U’s are currently six points ahead of the pack in the Conference and haven’t dropped a point at home this season. A full season is a demanding mistress; it is by no means guaranteed that Cambridge are marching to the title. But when things seem to be going so well right now, is he worried the U’s will naff up the playoffs again? There is no need to be messing pants at this stage of the season…
Swindon preview on the way later.
