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Non-league football’s mini-revolution in the East Midlands is unlikely to hold much sway with Gresley Rovers.
Ten clubs, mostly from the Northern Counties (East), have agreed to join the Central Midlands League to form a new Premier Division.The hope is that at least six more clubs can be recruited in time for the start of the 1986-87 campaign.
Gresley, sitting in the divide between East and West Midlands football, should be an obvious target for the leaders of the new crusade.
But the word from the Moat Ground is that Rovers are more than happy with life in the Banks’s West Midlands League.
Club treasurer Peter Jenkinson, one of Gresley’s most influential committee men, underlined why the club is likely to give any approach a sharp rebuff.
“Our ambition is to get in the Southern League Midland Division and the West Midlands league has already proved itself to be a stepping stone in that direction.”
The fear and isolation from the non-league pyramid is clearly one of the prospects facing clubs which elect to join the new league.
The Northern Counties (East) League had an arrangement for promotion to the Multipart League just as the West Midlands League has formed an “alliance” with the Southern League.
And yet, however, there is no indication that the Central Midlands League can provide a platform for progress for clubs of ambition.
One of the main planks in support of the new league is that it will provide local derby matches on a regular basis, thus stimulating interest at the turnstiles, and would eliminate long and costly away trips.
The theory may well have an immediate impact, but in the long term it is variety that is the spice of life.
From Gresley’s point of view, for instance, a game against Borrowash Victoria is likely to be considerably less appealing than a clash with, say, Halesowen Town.
