WE ALL SHOULD HAVE GONE UP!

THE season is over. The playoffs are happening. A tentative start date of mid-September is on the cards.

- Chris Dunlavy

For Gary Johnson, though, three months of tortuous wrangling has resulted in the wrong outcome.

“It’s great that two teams will go up from our league,” says the Torquay United boss. “I’m pleased that North and South will be part of it. But I wanted to get us all promoted. I still do, and I’ll keep talking about it until somebody listens.”

He is talking, of course, about League Three. Ever since lockdown began in late March, Johnson has been a vocal advocate of a revised pyramid that would see the National League top-flight absorbed into the Football League.

“I know it’s controversial in some quarters and I know I’ve said it before,” concedes the former Latvia, Yeovil Town, Bristol City and Cheltenham Town manager. “But the truth is, this ain’t Non-League any more. Not in the true sense of the word. How can you call teams like Notts County, Chesterfield, Hartlepool, Stockport and Wrexham Non-League? They aren’t.

“When I was at Yeovil, 15-20 years ago, it was Non-League. Part-time players. Amateur set-ups. Teams who had never played in the Football League.

“Now, 99 per cent of clubs at this level are full-time. Good facilities, good stadiums. Proper businesses.

“But players would rather go and play in the bottom half of League Two than the top half of the National League. It’s got nothing to do with money, or ambition, or the quality of football. It’s purely because there’s a stigma attached to being ‘NonLeague’.