Your views please gentlemen.........

[Baboo]

http://www.twohundredpercent.net/?p=9424.

As my comment on 200% indicates - I am very pro merging L2 with the BSBP.

Perhaps you are not being serious.

But just in case you are - **** off. Can't even be bothered to waste time arguing against.

[Fantastic Mr Ox]

[quote=&quotSnake&quot]Oxford United don’t need to worry about “pulling up the drawbridge

[Dr Bob]

It strikes me that one of the things that makes the BSP so competitive is that it is precisely the national pinnacle of the otherwise regionalised non-league game. That makes it the most suited structurally then to feed into the League. As well as all the other arguments on here, making the BSP League Division 5 would also then mean a regional non-league game feeding directly into a national Football League, which would make things really messy.

[Joey's Toe]

And while the FA are at it remove the anomaly of the four up/four down between Divisions Three and Four.

Yes, why does that anomaly exist?

[Mally]

Regionalisation? No, No, No. As others have said any benfits from reduced travel costs would be outweighed by loss of interest, attendance, sponsorship.

The way forward is, again as others have suggested, to switch to a 3 up 3 down system and overhall the administration within what is now called the Conference. This could be done either by bringing it under the Football League control (not necesssarily as a Division 5 though) or by the FA spending some serious time and money on it.

The Conference should be the link and transition zone between the professional and amateur/part time leagues and clubs. It should be there to prepare clubs for the League if they are good enough to get promoted and a safety net for League clubs if they drop out. It's the narrow corridor that means it's theoretically possible for any club to chart a passage from pub team to the Premier League and as such is a vital part of the national game.

[Out of the gloom]

Overall, I’m against any regionalisation. It is short-term cost saving at the expense of depleting long-term value.

If there were to be regionalisation, I’d consider reorganising League 1 and 2 as Football League North and South not the Conference. An important difference between this and the old Third Division North and South would be Playoffs.

With four relegated from the Championship, there would be one automatic and one playoff promotion each from North and South. Two playoffs for the Championship, instead of one, would raise the Leagues profile.

Also, with only the bottom place in North and South leading to relegation. There would be a clearer distinction between League 2/Conference (league/non-league) than the “blurring

[Ancient Colin]

Whilst I am here - in the 1990's Whirlpool Treviso were one of my clients who I visited occasionally. You don't happen to work for them do you?

Um, no. My grandfather, a tiler and mosaic layer, was born in Treviso, but came to the UK in the late nineteenth century.

I'm no great fan of regionalisation ... not least because of the messing around to rebalance the &quotnorth&quot and &quotsouth&quot elements following promotion and relegation - which, with the short gap between play-offs and start of the next season can be very problematic. I think Dr Bob's point about the non-regional BSP as a sorting mechanism for the non-league is important too.