Remember, this is a division painstakingly designed to keep its members safe. The two-up, two-down system means every team starts the season – theoretically at least – with a 16.6 per cent chance of winning promotion versus an 8.3 per cent chance of going down. To beat odds like that, something has to go very wrong.
Oldham and Scunthorpe offer recent examples of just how wrong things can go, but there is a long and infamous lineage stretching from Leyton Orient and Darlington all the way back to Doncaster in 1997.
Rochdale buck the trend. There’s nothing chaotic about the team from Spotland. No behind the scenes strife, at least beyond the usual stresses of trying to keep a provincial club off the breadline.
Habitat
They didn’t overstretch, rack up debt or flog their stadium. The owners never lost interest. They were simply overtaken by the dismal economic climate and the rise of newly-monied rivals.
April’s relegation was just the eighth time the Lancastrians have changed division in their 116-year history, the majority of which was spent uneventfully chugging along in the fourth tier.
This story is from the June 11, 2023 edition of The Non-League Football Paper.
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This story is from the June 11, 2023 edition of The Non-League Football Paper.
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