Re: Gateshead

By ChrisHFC24/5/2019 22:56Fri May 24 22:56:52 2019In response to Re: Gateshead

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The National League have announced this afternoon (24th May) that Gateshead have been refused a licence to play in the National League for 2019-20. Furthermore the League fined the club £3,500 and docked 9 points off last season's total for breaches of the League's regulations.

This should reprieve Aldershot Town from relegation to National League South. What happens in National League South regarding the vacancy created there is open to question. The National League have stated that the make up of their three divisions (National League, NL North, and NL South) will be announced and confirmed at the League's AGM on 8th June.

Note that nothing appears to have been said about which league Gateshead will play in next season, if any, always assuming that they can put together a ground, the finances, the squad, and also provide sufficient assurances that the club will be able to complete the 2019-20 season.

Whether this affects the Southern Premier South - Truro could be reprieved and stay in NL South - is open to pure speculation until the National League's AGM has taken place, and we know whether Truro have been reprieved.

As I said in my previous comment on the subject, the FA have lengthy regulations to cover all this. The FA League Committee, which allocates clubs to leagues from the pool of clubs at each step, have been known to ride roughshod over some of the FA regulations, and appear in some cases to be doing so again this summer.

What the final outcome will be is anybody's guess, but I can't see any result that will move us back to the Isthmian Premier, given the FA's desire to move as few clubs as possible after the league allocations were published last Sunday.

Edited by ChrisHFC at 22:58:54 on 24th May 2019