Friday Freebie: 2024/25 placements arrive

Is your club in the wrong place or happy to be in a place?

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The FA allocations for league placings came out this afternoon, just in time for this article to be written. Whilst there is always very little chance of changes in Steps 1 and 2, the contentious issues come underneath and in a lot of cases rightly so!

Not surprisingly Oxford City ended up in the National League North following relegation from the top division, although it has a very South/Midlands look to it.

Step 3 was also quite explanatory with only a couple of lateral movements between divisions and the rest remaining as expected with those clubs promoted and relegated.

Step 4 is where it starts to get interesting. I expected a few reprieves in the system where other clubs went bust and one or two asking for voluntary relegation. The interesting parts are if those clubs appeal and ask for their relegation to be confirmed.

For some it’s needed to rebuild a club and the step down helps with that especially if it’s been a tough season without many wins. Whilst it only affects five clubs, no doubt one or two will be looking at whether it’s viable for them to continue at this level.

When you get down to County League level at Step 5 and 6 it starts to get a little messy. On the whole divisions are at their 20 team limit in search of the FA’s perfect pyramid, although I believe that the future will move towards 22 team divisions.

What seems illogical is Step 6 divisions with more teams than Step 5! For example, the Midland Football League has 18 clubs at Step 5 but 22 clubs at Step 6, why hasn’t that been balanced out correctly?

The opposite happens in the North West Counties League where Step 5 has 24 clubs but Step 6 make do with two lots of 18 teams. Maybe there is a plan to balance these out somehow in the next couple of years but how did they end up in this position in the first place?

Already today I’ve seen Clapton Community will appeal against their inclusion in the Southern Counties East League (Kent) which doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.

A shout out must go to @NonLeagueMaps on Twitter and also @petermiller36 on the same platform who throughout the season keep us abreast of where they think each club stands and to be fair they are 99% on the money, always will be one or two where you just don’t know what the FA are thinking in terms of lateral movement.

Anyway, the link for being able to check them out for yourself is here for FA League allocations, let me know in the comments if you’ve spotted a random bad placement or if actually one part of the FA have done a sterling job.