Proposed new Football League structure

[BobBobBob]

Regionalisation sounds good on paper but does it really help a club like Torquay?

I was curious about this so I did a very down and dirty number crunching exercise by getting Google to provide me with the suggested road distance between Torquay and all our league opponents for next year. Based on just that, the answer is...Kind of.

National League (in miles, from Torquay):
383.2 - Gateshead
348.2 - Barrow
312.7 - York
310.7 - Guiseley
310.0 - North Ferriby
279.6 - Southport
276.0 - Tranmere
272.8 - Braintree
269.6 - Lincoln
263.5 - Dover
258.0 - Dagenham
249.0 - Chester
244.4 - Macclesfield
243.2 - Wrexham
227.8 - Boreham Wood
225.6 - Maidstone
218.8 - Bromley
192.2 - Sutton
182.5 - Solihull Moors
170.3 - Woking
165.4 - Aldershot
131.1 - Eastleigh
123.7 - Forest Green

246.1 - MEAN
249.0 - MEDIAN

If you split the teams in half, north and south (with us in the south), it's true that most of the northern clubs represent our longest journeys, but not by much. The nearest "northern" club is Solihull, yet as you can see they will be our fifth closest journey for next season. It must be acknowledged also that Braintree, Dover and Dagenham are longer journeys for us than Chester, Macclesfield and Wrexham.

284.1 - NORTH MEAN
204.5 - SOUTH MEAN
277.8 - NORTH MEDIAN
218.8 - SOUTH MEDIAN

There's some mileage saved to be sure, but not much. It's perhaps ironic that of all the promoted teams, one from the Conference North is a shorter journey than the two that came up from the Conference South. So I figured I'd do the same for both the North and the South as it pertains to Torquay.

Predicted National North 2016/17
352.3 - Darlington
315.4 - Harrogate
300.8 - Bradford Park Avenue
295.9 - Halifax
295.4 - Fylde
290.4 - Gainsborough
287.6 - Boston
274.1 - Chorley
269.0 - FC United
267.2 - Stalybridge
267.0 - Salford
265.1 - Curzon Ashton
258.2 - Stockport
248.4 - Altrincham
243.8 - Alfreton
206.1 - Telford
202.1 - Nuneaton
201.8 - Tamworth
190.4 - Brackley
169.7 - Kidderminster
153.7 - Worcester
131.0 - Gloucester

Predicted National South 2016/17
271.8 - Concord Rangers
265.2 - Margate
263.0 - Chelmsford
259.1 - Bishop Stortford
225.7 - East Thurrock
223.7 - Welling
222.0 - St. Albans
221.5 - Ebbsfleet
220.2 - Hemel Hempstead
219.1 - Dartford
215.3 - Eastbourne
211.2 - Wealdstone
194.6 - Whitehawk
190.2 - Maidenhead
178.4 - Hampton & Richmond
170.6 - Oxford City
155.0 - Hungerford
149.2 - Gosport Borough
121.4 - Bath
106.5 - Truro
99.8 - Poole
79.1 - Weston Super Mare

249.3 - NORTH MEAN
193.8 - SOUTH MEAN
266.0 - NORTH MEDIAN
213.2 - SOUTH MEDIAN

Once again it's clear mileage can be saved with a regional split, but not nearly as much as one might think. In the case of the National South, we'd have been seeing only a slight reduction in journey distance had we been relegated. I'll also note that the one vaguely local journey we would have had isn't the club that was going to ground share with us. Kind of underlines what a daft idea that was!

From a football fan perspective, I'm against regionalisation. I like going to away games all around the country. It would seem there is a large number of Torquay supporters who do too. It always impresses me that we take such large numbers no matter where we are. It looked like we outnumbered Gateshead fans at their place. And there was a surprising amount of us in the never-ending rain at Barrow (and even more sensible ones in the stands) despite our grim outlook back then. There's obviously a contingent of Torquay supporters spread to all reaches of the country and beyond, it would seem a shame to limit the northern based ones their more local opportunities to see us play.

Although my findings do support regionalisation from an economic sense, it is in the pursuit of small gains from a Torquay point of view. It does also show that Torquay themselves are the major outliers in terms of the National League and travel distance. It must be said that purely from a travelling expenses perspective it would be a big benefit to many clubs, both north and south, if Torquay were not in their league!

My conclusion is therefore that the FA have a very simple solution in cutting down travelling times for clubs in non-league and bringing some much needed pride to the Football League: Automatically promote Torquay to League Two immediately. All those in favour say aye!

[tomogull]

That's a gob-smacking, hell of a summary you've done there, three-bob. I bet it was more interesting doing that than watching the boring Cup Final. I would never have guessed that Braintree and Dover were farther away than Chester, Wrexham and Macclesfield for example. And because of the road network, getting to Dover probably takes longer than getting to Tranmere or Southport. Like you, I'm not a devotee of regional leagues and I think your findings show that there would be little saving in travel distances. I can never understand why Gloucester, just up the road from Torquay, play in the National North !

[wivelgull]

I agree with tomogull. Bob cubed has done well.

[SenorDingDong]

I can never understand why Gloucester, just up the road from Torquay, play in the National North !

Bad luck more than anything, the sheer amount of South-East teams skews the borderline of Conference North/South far further south than it should be really. To make it worse for them, dependent upon how other teams do they can get shunted North/South on an annual basis.

[PhilGull]

Isn't one of the levels split east/west rather than north/south? Something which makes a lot more sense because of the ease with which you can get from Torquay on to the A380/M5/M6 - making it easier to get to Manchester and beyond than the south east.