The Archive

The plans to restructure the Welsh Premier league have been met with an equal amount of support and opposition, as Paul Ashley-Jones reports

In May the Football Association of Wales (FAW) published plans to restructure the Welsh Premier (WP). The move, the greatest change in Welsh domestic football since the WP (previously the League of Wales) was created in 1992, proposed a cut from 18 teams down to ten by the end of next season. This plan didn’t come as a shock and had been endorsed by the clubs themselves some time ago. What did surprise them was that the FAW rejected a ten-club second division.

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Ian Plenderleith looks back at the stunning contribution made to non-league football made by Tony Kempster, who passed away in June

Fans of the non-League game were unanimous in mourning this past June when one of its most devoted figures, Tony Kempster, died of cancer. This column has featured Kempster’s impeccable online guide to the nether leagues of England before, and used it for reference on countless occasions. He defied all internet trends by investing an unbelievable amount of time and energy to inform hundreds of thousands of fans about the structure of non-League football. There was no commercial motive, and there was no easy escape route into blogging and Twitter. Typically for the non-League milieu, Kempster’s work was born of dedication.

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Setanta is no more, but what did the channel do for viewers outside of the Premier League? Our writers assess the channel’s influence on the Conference and Scottish Premier League

The Conference
In WSC 259 I confessed to having given in to the lure of pay-TV, opting for Setanta rather than Sky for the sake of my bank balance. Now I am not so proud about my choice.

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ESPN’s purchase of Premier League games is not their first brush with football. David Wangerin traces a complicated relationship

In America, ESPN (Entertainment Sports Programming Network) is generally the most indispensable channel in the house; in the UK it’s just another satellite option. Whether the acquisition of Premier League rights will help the self-proclaimed “Worldwide Leader in Sports” to find greater favour over here is open to question. But its association with English football goes back further than even its Wikipedia entry is prepared to acknowledge.

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Dave Jennings reviews a League Two season which proved difficult for a number of teams who started with point deductions whilst the teams at the top struggled to find consistency

Right from the beginning of the season, the League Two table served as a reminder of the ever-present economic perils at the humblest levels of English professional football. The three teams that would finish at the bottom appeared to have been effectively chosen by the authorities before the opening day. Luton’s cause looked hopeless from the moment their 30-point deduction for various monetary transgressions was confirmed, and it seemed a reasonably safe bet that they’d head for the Blue Square Premier in the company of either Rotherham or Bournemouth, who would surely struggle to overcome the 17-point handicaps loaded on to them for their financial failings. However, all three clubs managed to retain relatively strong squads, and the latter two both reached safety, Rotherham recording results that would have put them in the play-offs but for their points penalty.

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