Co-Chairman Bill Waterson's thoughts on 3UP

This morning the National League announced their campaign to secure three
promotion places from our league to the English Football League. Under the Banner “Put Football First” the 3Up campaign will look to remove the bottle neck that sits between the EFL and the NL, between the Professional Game System and the National League System.

This bottleneck is unique in the football pyramid. For “The 92” promotion and
relegation between the Premier League and the EFL and within the EFL itself is well
defined with either three or four clubs from each league able to progress. And within
the non-League pyramid the FA and the impacted leagues worked tirelessly over many years to establish a pyramid of around one thousand clubs in forty-seven leagues across steps one to six with seamless promotion throughout.

Promotion to the Football League from non-League has a convoluted history of its own, and Alty have always been in the vanguard of pressing for reform of the process. And here we are again, standing shoulder to shoulder with the National League and our fellow clubs across the pyramid in support of 3Up.

Of course, we were instrumental in driving the formation of the Alliance Premier League (as the National League was known back then) in 1979 and kept pushing until the establishment of a single automatic promotion place to the EFL for the National League champions in 1987. And we continued to support the establishment of a second promotion place from the National League, a campaign that was successful with the establishment of a second promotion place in 2003.

That last reform was over 20 years ago, and in that time, football has changed
considerably, particularly outside the Football League. The standard of the National
League has improved immeasurably over this period with significant increases in
professionalism, ambition, and quality. And this has been reflected in the crowds that
games at our level now attract.

A quick look at those clubs who have successfully navigated the bottle neck shows most of them challenging for promotion from League Two from their very first season, and many then going on to challenge in League One.

Those clubs that come into the National League from the Football League are often in need of respite – to take a breath, to regroup and to come back stronger. Plenty of clubs have achieved that goal and resumed their place in the EFL, and there are many more still plying their trade in the National League in much better shape than they were when they came down and seeking to regain their former exulted status.

And what about those non-League clubs with ambition and hunger? Of course, Alty
count ourselves in that number. We have seen many clubs like this successfully make the transition to the EFL, the latest example being Bromley who were rewarded for years of hard work on and off the field with promotion last season.

This is what makes the National League such a compelling spectacle – the heady mix of former Football League clubs and the elite of non-League fighting it out. But at the end of the season, all that talent has to squeeze through the narrowest of gaps (albeit immeasurably wider than in 1979) to try and play at a level befitting with their talent.

It is time to correct this historic anomaly, the long-standing injustice and give the National League our deserved third promotion spot.

The need to Put Football First and to implement a firm and fair promotion system across what will be ten levels of football will make English football the envy of the world.

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