A study of the final standings from the 1996/1997 edition of Nationwide Division 3 perhaps offers a definitive example of the speed with which fortunes can alter in football.
Three of the top 7 finishers will be competing in the upcoming Premier League season – Fulham, Cardiff City, and Swansea City. Hull City, who sat closer to 24th and last spot than to a play-off berth, will start alongside that triumvirate in the 2013/2014 top tier.
Leading the way in Division 3 sixteen years back were current F.A. Cup holders, Wigan Athletic, now freshly relegated into the Championship.
It was the bottom of the table, however, that spiked national interest. At Herford United’s Edgar Street, on the campaign’s concluding day, the hosts needed to defeat Brighton & Hove Albion to ensure retention of their Football League status. That scenario would have sent the Seagulls into the then perceived black-hole of the non-league world, just 14 years on from appearing in an F.A. Cup final against Manchester United.
As events transpired, the journeyman striker, Robbie Reinelt, enjoyed his Andy Warhol moment, prodding in a barely deserved second-half equaliser which kept the Sussex club afloat, just, and demoted the Bulls’ by virtue of their inferior goals-scored record.
Albion fans celebrated wildly their team’s avoidance of a fate widely considered to be a first sounding of the death knell for a stricken club.
It took Hereford nine years to return but, when they did, they stepped up from a revived league. Indeed, Graham Turner’s side were one of the early beneficiaries of an initiative which has done much to restore the health of the game at this reduced, but acutely competitive, level.
After twice falling at the semi-final stage, Hereford won their ascension through the play-offs which, since 2003, have given the Conference a second promotion spot.
It is a status quo far removed from that which existed at the time of the oppressive sudden-death scenario encountered by the league’s bottom two clubs in 1997. The prevailing image of the Conference as a footballing dead-end during that mid-1990’s era was afforded extra gravity by the fortunes of its three previous winners. Kidderminster Harriers, Macclesfield Town, and Stevenage Borough, champions in 1994, 1995, and 1996 respectively, were all denied the reward their on-pitch achievements merited, due to their stadia not matching Football League criteria.
In fact, it was a mere eleven seasons prior to the Seagulls’ last day reprieve, when it was agreed that the team finishing atop the non-league ladder would be elevated into Football League circles. The previous, wholly unsatisfactory, arrangement, necessitated aspirational clubs to apply for election in to the league – all too often finding the door slammed firmly in their faces by understandably risk-averse members of the 92.
When, in 1987, Lincoln City became the first team to tumble out of league football owing to their basement position, they were able to recover and bounce back at the first time of asking.
In the two years since the Imps last suffered relegation out of the league in 2011, they have ended up 17th and 16th in a Conference Premier division which is the most demanding in memory.
The guarantee of there being two promoted clubs, in addition to a closing berth anywhere between 2nd and 5th extending the season and maintaining hope of being one of the elevated duo, has encouraged investment and ambition on a hitherto unprecedented scale.
The downside of such increased pecuniary speculation is pronounced. Budgets have been overshot, and the very life of some clubs has been threatened. Halifax Town and Chester City have both been lost, before re-appearing in the phoenix form under which they have battled back to start this term as members of English football’s fifth-tier.
The contemporary 24 team Conference Premier includes a series of eminent names. It is the plight of Luton Town which best exemplifies the mighty task that is finding a route back to the league. League Cup winners in 1988, and relegated out of the top flight just 21 years ago, the Hatters have been trying to claw their way back into League Two for four years.