Half a century of ins and outs
Hello Sutton and welcome back Hartlepool to EFL membership. Farewell Southend and Grimsby, taking the number of clubs who have departed the League since 1970-71 to 32. That’s a third of the membership. With the exceptions of Barrow, Southport and Workington all the rest have gone as a consequence of automatic relegation to the Conference (National League) introduced in 1987.
But more than half – 17 out of the 30 clubs who have had the chance – have made it back into the League. Some like Bristol Rovers made an immediate return whilst Barrow took almost that whole half-century to do so, and just clung on last season. Newport County and AFC Wimbledon have had the most peculiar and arduous journeys but their endeavours will give hope to supporters of Bury and Darlington, currently a long way from what they would consider to be their natural football home. Half of those clubs who haven’t made it back to League status are currently residing in the National League, so there’s always next season for them.
What of their replacements? Well, famously there are two FA Cup winners – Wimbledon (1988) and Wigan (2013) but none of the new boys are currently in the top two divisions. Wycombe, MK Dons and Burton have also seen action at that level but are now in L1 alongside Accrington, Fleetwood, Morecambe and Cheltenham. In League Two there are several clubs with relatively short histories like Forest Green, Salford and Harrogate while some of the great non-league clubs of yesteryear like Bath, Enfield and Altrincham have never made it in.
And then of course, finally, are the clubs that, sometimes very briefly, have come and gone from D3D4 membership, among them Scarborough, Kidderminster, Rushden & Diamonds and Maidstone. Has automatic promotion and relegation at the foot of League Two made much difference? Not really. No, what you might call bigger clubs have been established as a consequence (NB Wigan were elected, not promoted). There are a few more Home Counties clubs like Crawley, Stevenage and Wycombe that have shifted the regional balance a little south-wards. But the entry of Accrington, Fleetwood, Morecambe and Salford show Lancashire retaining its historic and disproportionate strength.
Roger Titford – football historian and author of Roy Bentley’s Stationary Club – the strange story of how Third Division Reading stood still in the 1960s.