Promotion and Relegation Picture – First Division
The regular season is now over with just the Promotion play-offs to go.
Here we have a look at how the promotion and play-off picture looks in the SCEFL First Division.
PROMOTION
First-up here is a summary of the guidelines
“The team finishing at the top of the table at the end of the season will be automatically promoted.”
“The teams finishing in positions 2, 3, 4 and 5 will enter the Play Offs.”
“The Play Off Matches shall be played so that the highest placed of the eligible Clubs plays against the lowest placed and the other two Clubs play each other (Example: 2nd v 5th and 3rd v 4th).”
“The ties will be played on a single match basis with the home Club being the Club that finished highest in the table”
“The Play Offs will take place in the final week of April.”
League Table
Title
Stansfeld are the First Division Champions and will receive automatic promotion to Step 5.
Play-Offs
Sutton Athletic won the play-off final and will be promoted to the Premier Division.
RELEGATION
First-up here is a summary of the guidelines
“At the end of the Season the Clubs in the bottom three positions of each of the seventeen Step 6 divisions will be liable to relegation.”
“The final number of Clubs to be relegated will be confirmed once promotion candidates from Feeder Leagues and any vacancies are known.”
“If reprieves are required the Clubs 3rd from bottom will be ranked on a points per match basis – the Club(s) with the best points per match will be reprieved.”
“If all 3rd from bottom Clubs are reprieved, and a further reprieve(s) is required, the same process will apply for Clubs 2nd from bottom (and so on).”
League Table
Chessington & Hook, Forest Hill Park and Meridian VP have finished in the bottom three.
They will now await the FA decision on how many teams will be reprieved from relegation.
With quite a few teams withdrawing from the non league pyramid in the past year there will be a large number of reprieves available.
Peter Miller has worked it out that all ‘3rd bottom’ teams will be reprieved and a PPG table for the ‘second bottom’ teams which is good reading for Forest Hill Park.
However, until we hear relegation numbers from the FA this could be a dangerous guideline to follow with 100% trust.
Fingers crossed for the 3 teams involved!
Last updated – 1st May
