Thetownend.com

Just read about Bolton chariman Phil Gartside's genius idea to turn the Championship in the 'Premier League 2'. Basically, the idea is to create two tiers of 18 teams (including Celtic and Rangers), with just one Football League team able to gain promotion each season. Or, in Gartside's terms, its another way to strangle FL teams and generate more dosh.

I'd like to say I can't seriously believe it'll ever happen, but frankly I wouldn't put much past the FA (especially if it's as lucrative in monetary terms as it sounds). Safe to say, should I ever meet Phil Gartside I'll give him a slap for even having the temerity to make such a retarded suggestion.

Haha, I actually read this as a 'Mirror World Exclusive', but I've just found the guardian article from Oct 23, 2008 http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/oct/23/premier-league-shake-up-bolton-gartside

The Premier League 2 idea has been floating around for years - so long infact that Swindon were among the early teams to be included :)

Hmm, I knew the inclusion of Celtic and Rangers had been around for years, wasn't aware of the concept of the Premier League 2 though. This is what I get for reading The mirror :-[

Yeah - I'm certain of it. After the success of the first few seasons of the Premier League it was proposed.

Yes, we were certainly in what is now the Championship when it was first proposed.

I don't like it one bit for three obvious reasons -

1. Only 1 team up/down - would destroy the FL.
2. Money will further be diluted into the football league. The Prem will have 36 teams apposed to the 20 they have now - and you can bet that they will take the lions share.
3. Why the fuck should Rangers or Celtic get a place in our league structure for free. They should earn it like 91 of the 92 league clubs have - start at the bottom non-league and work up.

If this ever went ahead it would destroy our football league structure, and destroy Scotlands too. It must never go ahead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8006934.stm

Piece on it there from the BBC today. Looks as though its being given serious consideration :doh:

If it aint broke dont try to fix it

It doesnt suprise me to see chairmen scared about falling off the gravy train.

To be honest, we are so far outside the top 30 clubs in the country, that would it even matter to us?

I cant see Celtic or Rangers comming off. No way. Not after Manchester.

But Premier League 2 has been a long time comming, and to be honest, we dont have nearly as much to loose as some clubs. 'The Championship' lot have been looking to cut us adrift for a while.

What a fucking joke.

Greed ,greed ,greed.

Id imagine the clubs outside of this would have to seriously consider going part time.

Made me laugh, the Bolton chairman acting like they are now part of the established elite in the Premier League and have more in common with Arsenal and Chelsea than Ipswich and Plymouth. All it takes is one bad season and they'll be following Charlton, Leeds, Sheffield Wednesday, Southampton etc in the lower leagues.

Before everyone starts panicking lets not forget their plans to play a game abroad were a lot more progressed than this and that came to nothing. I'm sure pretty much nothing will come of this as they've been talking about all of it for a long time, there's nothing new here.

There is no way Celtic and Rangers will be joining the English leagues as they are the only ones that think it is a good idea - no one else wants it. The FA's and UEFA are unlikely to let it happen either.

Promotion and relegation is very unlikely to change, maybe they'll get it down to 2 up / 2 down but that will be it and it will cost the Premier League a fortune to pay off the Football League so they accept it. Expanding the Premier League to 2 divisions is just plain stupid and won't achieve anything, the current structure is working well and I doubt anyone will be eager to fuck with it.

I can see The Championship clubs demanding and getting a better share of the TV income, or even going it alone. Wouldn't have a problem with that myself, the gap in quality is getting wider and wider and who the fuck wants to watch League 1 / 2 matches other than supporters?

If I remember correctly the last time this came up that twat Scally (Chairman of Gillingham) was all for it on the basis that they had just got promoted into what was the Championship.

If it does get the go ahead I just hope that Bolton suffer the same fate & they end up in Div 4 again, wankers

Gartside has always been like this, twat. He advocated no relegation from the top flight too didn't he? All this is just to stop Bolton from getting relegated - but relegation is the fun bit of football at the momenet with the domination of the big 4 - the fact that big teams like Leeds, Leicester and Charlton can become shit and drop down to the third tier.

I have another idea anyway, miles better too. Boring, shit, nothing 1-0 teams like Bolton and Blackburn should be relegated at the end of every season as a punishment for being boring and shit and 'big' teams like Sheff Wed, Derby, Forest etc,. should go up in their place

I can see why there at it, being desperate for a bigger share of the tv money. I think that a better solution would be to go ahead, but make league one "Premier League 3" and leage two "Premier League 4", obviously keep league sizes and promotion places the same. Such an elegant solution.

If it goes ahead it would be wonderful for membership to be decided by club's performances over the past, say, 40 years.  Then see where Bolton end up (I have no figures or stats to back this up, but would hope it would leave Bolton playing league matches at the CG - happy to be corrected).

I was wondering where we'd end up if they organised it based on the size of the club, ie attendances.

How many would we get on average if we were in the Premier League and our capacity was say 40k?

Bolton get 22k on average, I reckon we'd beat that - 25k easy.

Doing an epic attendance average over however many years would be an interesting league table, although not really a meaningful one.

I did work out fairly recently that our average league finish since the 4 tier football league was put in place is the equivalent of 4th in league one.

I smell some nest feathering here.  Interesting that this scheme has been announced (again) not long after Bolton’s benefactor Eddie Davies recently giving the club his very own “vote of confidence” by pledging to continue financially supporting the club for the foreseeable future.. 

Much like everyone else this year “Steady Eddie” and his company Strix are tightening their belts and I wonder just how much financial backing the club will get from him over the next 12 months prompting to start looking at life a bit further down the league.

I can’t see it happening but even so I’d like to know what they are proposing to do with the rest of the Championship clubs that don’t make the grade.  Surely there are far too many to re-distribute the displaced clubs down the existing league structure, which require the introduction of a new “Championship” or a new 3rd tier in the league pyramid, which would we be included in or would we be relegated to the 4th tier?

I very much doubt that.  It would take years of sustained success to build a fan base of that size.

Our first ever home game in the top flight (admittedly a mid week game vs Oldham) attracted a crowd of 11,970...which is in the same region as the attendance being predicted by some for the game this weekend.

Exactly. Our capacity was bigger then as well - 18k.

getting to the prem would = a few years of sustained success as we are in div 3.reading have shown what can be done.we could be a club very simliar to them in size and fan base

I'd agree with that too.  Reading have had 10 years of almost uninterrupted success.  It would be very interesting to see what would happen if the same were to happen in Swindon.  I hope we all get the chance to find out.

Seems like this was a non story.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8006934.stm

But the Premier League is totally different to what it was 15 years ago, the quality of players and clubs has increased dramatically and attendances have improved across the board. Whilst the fan base might not increase, I reckon there'd be a lot more people buying season tickets to see the opponents rather than Swindon.

I reckon we'd average 12,000 in the Championship.

I dont. We were top of it after 3 months in 1997 and were getting about 8,000 home fans.

As for the influx of people comming to watch other clubs, Hallelujah. Cant wait.

Attendances have increased though and 12,000 would still leave us as one of the worst supported clubs, have a look a the lowest average attendances for The Championship this season:

Preston North End = 13206
Barnsley = 12958
Burnley = 12762
Doncaster Rovers = 11960
Plymouth Argyle = 11286
Blackpool = 7777

We'd be one of the worst supported clubs then.

I have to do a double take at Doncaster getting 12,000. But it wont last.

Ardiles, if there were actually 11,970 in the ground that night then I'm Twiggy. We were under declaring crowds for years and were doling so in the Prem. We weren't even subtle about this - there was certainly a few seasons where the supporters were openly taking the piss when the crowds were announced.
We'll be lucky to get 10k v Rovers.
If we were in the Championship we would be one of the worst supported clubs.
As for Gartsides' idea, he's a greedy cunt advocating more money for a bunch of greedy cunts with zero thugoht for the fans - so its got a good chance of going ahead then.

Bolton are hoping to jump on the gravey train whilst they are at the station. It will more than likely happen at some point or other, or at least something very similar- i cannnot blame mister whippet botherer for causing a scene

when we were in the premiership football wasn,t so fashionable no team was averaging the sort of numbers they do nowadays.

I remember the early Soccer A.M's doing ticket news on matchdays and most games had tickets available back then. Including places like Anfield.

Gartside is mentioning it again. He must think relegation is on the cards:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/8264498.stm

Gartside is a prick

seconded

"But Rangers and Celtic would not be fighting relegation, they would be adding to England's top four."

Adding to their goal difference maybe...

And yes, it's a stupid idea

Initially, Rangers and Celtic would struggle to make much of an impact but after a year or two I'm sure they would challenge.  They have massive fan bases and once they were rid of the drag they have on their growth - membership of the SPL - they would benefit hugely from joining the Prem.  So the comment about joining the Big Four is not quite as daft as it sounds, I'd say.

Won't happen though.

Letting Celtic and Rangers join the English league structure doesn't make any sense for any English teams.

I can see there being a Premier League 2 or more likely, The Championship splitting from the rest of the Football League to get their own TV deal. I'm not sure that would be a bad thing either, League 1 and 2 could join up with the Conference for a TV deal - it would probably end up generating more money for everyone.

It just wouldn't. League one and two tag along with the championship at the moment, were we to ditch the championship for the conference with regards to TV money we'd get fuck all. Would you rather invest in newcastle-west brom or Barrow-Tamworth??

I see Bolton have made massive losses despite being in the PL :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bolton_wanderers/8341177.stm

Think it's on the cards that they're heading for trouble.  I suspect Eddie Davis their backer and sugar daddy isn't far from pulling out in the next few years and they'll very quickly drop like a Southampton or Leeds with those losses.

Bolton have announced another year of massive losses :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bolton_wanderers/9177431.stm

Another year of financial prudence by Phil Gartside and co.

Good. Gartside is a cock. I wonder what will come first: a relegation free premiership or Bolton phoning Andronikou? I'd love to see Andy helping Bolton. The sooner the better please.

They're in debt by £93m...which is getting close to Pompey's £100m+.

One bad season and they could be calling in AA. I cannot believe Gartside says that they are 'financially sound'.

They are now £93m in debt. Who the fuck is dumb enough to let them run up that kind of tab?

Incredible that even after Pompey the football authorities are still doing fuck all about it.

I'm sure Mr. Gartside will begin lobbying a new hair brained scheme soon enough.

That'll be Gary Cahill off in January then.

Cash in on Kevin Davies' cap.

bid for Mr. Ward?

He'll probably come up with the scheme of saying that the Premiership sides that get relegated will still get the £60m+ television money for upto 3 years, whilst the newly promoted sides only get the parachute payment, which relegated sides normally get.