1. No relegation from the Championship

2. ND1 champions to be promoted

3. Play-off for the winners of the Championship… if they meet the MSC!

Personally think bottom should have a play-off with 2nd top of ND1.

I can quite see them going the rugby league route and having two leagues of 10 with entry not being linked to league positions at the time or even to clubs which exist at the time.

I heard this too, and literally groaned out loud. I think that they are just planning to kick the can until the whole edifice topples over, then someone can buy Twickenham for a song.

Riiight....

It seems to me that the solution to 2000 clubs kicking off about the clubs in the top tier looking after themselves and pulling up the drawbridge is not to buy off the most vociferous critics at level 2 by making them the right side of the drawbridge, and leaving what's still basically 2000 clubs to twist in the wind. 

You say 'jeopardy' - lovely, on whose side? The team that wins the league below, or the team with some central funding that they have to get past? It's all very well saying 'if they can't beat the bottom Championship side then they don't deserve to go up', but it isn't a level playing field. 

At least an actual ring-fence is honest and open. All that idea would do is double the number of clubs worthy of contempt for nodding it through while they're on the right side of the line.

Yes, I know it's only an idea. But it needs killing with fire, as we used to say in the fleet.

Agree. It's like the dawn of Super League all over again. Clubs being really involved in setting it all up and then being told e.g. Keithley, at the eleventh hour 'we know you've won the league but you're not coming up because we need space for a new team in Paris.' Keithley and Featherstone Rovers at one point a couple of years back had figures for how much money they thought they'd been done out of by being taken round the back and shot before the first Super League season to make way for Paris and Gateshead. 

Riiight....

It seems to me that the solution to 2000 clubs kicking off about the clubs in the top tier looking after themselves and pulling up the drawbridge is not to buy off the most vociferous critics at level 2 by making them the right side of the drawbridge, and leaving what's still basically 2000 clubs to twist in the wind. 

You say 'jeopardy' - lovely, on whose side? The team that wins the league below, or the team with some central funding that they have to get past? It's all very well saying 'if they can't beat the bottom Championship side then they don't deserve to go up', but it isn't a level playing field. 

At least an actual ring-fence is honest and open. All that idea would do is double the number of clubs worthy of contempt for nodding it through while they're on the right side of the line.

Yes, I know it's only an idea. But it needs killing with fire, as we used to say in the fleet.

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But of course I wasn't talking about the top tier, meaning much of your ramblings are irrelevant to the point at hand. It is clear that the game is in a period of flux/evolution, which generally means that many ideas could and probably should be on the table. And they are just that, ideas, so I wouldn't let it wind you up as much as it appears to have done. 

Of course the beauty of this forum is that everyone, whichever 'fleet' they may or may not belong to, has the opportunity to put forward their opinions and suggestions for discussion, and long may that continue.

Oh I'm not wound up - if anything I was laughing at what I thought was the hypocrisy. 

However, looking back I see that I misread the post I was responding to, and that the idea is bottom playing second top, not bottom playing top. So I apologise. 

I hold my hand up to irrelevant ramblings, but not for the reason that you might have thought. In fact, perhaps my irrelevant ramblings might now make more sense - even though off target.

Have a lovely weekend.