PYRAMID IN PLACE

Top Tweet from Bognor Regis on Sunday paying tribute to the sizeable U's contingent. I have been slobbing around in Tshirt and shorts for just over 3 weeks - they will've been put away this Saturday and cold weather gear as on display here will be reluctantly pulled on again. Back into Gatwick on Friday.

This is a good layout of football's structure from Premier League to County League. Fingers crossed Editor-in-Chief Hoggard can reproduce it legibly here. I found it on an AFC Totton sitehence the 'special mention' in the step 4 layer of Southern League Div 1 South which is where Totton kicked off this season. Ben Rochey-Adams gets credit for the diagram.

There is surely more to come - at pro level. There's been talk for years of reviving the old regional set up - 3rd Divisions North and South which ran till the 1957-58 season. This was pretty much the equivalent of today's National League's North and South divisions which started in 2004-05.

24 clubs each, top 12 from Div 3 South and Div 3 North formed the new look Football League Div 3 and the bottom 12 from 3S and 3N formed the new look Football League Div 4. A huge increase in travelling would've resulted.

At semi pro level - the game is overloaded with administrators and empires. All overseen by the FA which imposed some unbelievable directives on the game as the big restructure went through - none more so than play off winners being denied promotion 4 seasons ago.

We now have pyramids within the overall pyramid. Three Isthmian step 4 divisions feed into the Isthmian Premier and three step 4 Northern Premier League clubs feed into their Premier Division. The overall result in the Isthmian 'pyramid' is 6 clubs go up from Step 4 but only 4 come down from Step 3 which results in cross league shuffles with the Southern League to balance the clubs out.

Basically it's all about 8 step 4 divisions kicking off a new season with 20 clubs each. And 3 empires overseeing them - Northern Prem, Southern and Isthmian who will have to swap clubs to get that 20 per division allocation. Geographical location can also decide what League you end up in - up to National South / North level. Cambridge City a good examplethey've played in all three of those empires. Whatever, most of the dust seems to have settled at last but you have to wonder if that bottom tier of the EFL is due a shake up.

Talking About Covid

Couldn't resist this blast from the recent past ... :-)

All In A Name

Football has seen a huge influx of foreign players in the last 35 years or so. Some great sounding names now feature in team line ups and Saturday's highlight for me is Egham's Excellence Muhemba who was man of the match in their FA Vase win at Eastbourne Town.

3.45 AM KICK OFF!

decent fist of it after coming up from Isthmian North last season via the play offs. Danny Parish, who played a short but important role for the U's last season, moved north of the River in the close season and will presumably be in the away line up for this game.

Canvey Island are here for an early morning kick off - here in SE Asia. They are making a very

That mooted Lower Thames Crossing, if it gets built, will surely make travelling a bit easier for Canvey Island's treks into Kent and Sussex.

Guernsey Spiral

Wow, what is happening down in the Channel lslands this last few seasons - Saturday saw them go down 8-0 in their Isthmian Central game at Basingstoke. 8-0 Still recall that first season we played them 2013-14, three games including an FA Cup tie - and we lost the lot. Going to the away game at Footes Lane that season saw me fly for the first time since 197934 grounded years. Fear of flying phobia fixed and now I virtually commute to the Philippines. Hope things pick up for The Green Lions.

Things carry on as they are, they'll get replaced by Jersey Bulls.

Tilekiln

Plenty to say in Saturday's programme on a big big issue ...