Does it have a future as a feeder? Once the top teams have left for the Alliance, the NPL will become a much poorer league, and the travelling distanced involved for the level of football would be disproportionate.

It would be a good idea to split up into East/West divisions, at least for Division 1 if not the Premier as well. There could even be three leagues, with a playoff process deciding the promoted teams.

Think about the geography-Northumberland to Lincolnshire or Barrow is a long way.

Better would be a North-East and North Yorks division, a North-West division, and a Licolnshire/Notts/parts of NW league.

Then at the end of the season, say two teams from each division play off with the 2nd teams in the first phase knock-out to one side, who then enters the second phase against the three champions, the winners of the two ties goes up.

Yeh, I part agree with you Matt.

There needs to be a regional split below the new premier division that will be created, taking in NCE NWC and NL teams to make up the numbers. East/West would be best and simple for promotion and relegation purposes, thats if any NL teams are bothered mind!

Maybe they would be if they thought that there would be some more local derbies a season???

Of course it has a future as a feeder league. The Unibond and other leagues wouldnt have agreed to the Conference Two if there wasnt the proviso they stay as feeders.

I think you are right to think about geographically splitting the remainder of the league into two seperate divisions although I think North/South might be better. Blyth to Workington isnt as far as Blyth to Eastwood / Alfreton / Hucknall.

I cant see there being enough clubs to continue with two Unibond divisions as at present and the feeders such as the NW Counties and NE Counties wouldnt accept a large number of clubs leaving them would they?

A North / South league set up would also hopefully persuade some Northern League clubs to finally join the pyramid system and move onwards and upwards. Geographically speaking they wouldnt be going that much further than now (Penrith are a NL club) if the boundaries were set at Cumbria, North Yorkshire and the North East with the odd team from just outside those areas making up the numbers.

I think every level down from the new Conference feeders should be split geographically. That way, there would be 2-up, 4-down in every division.

The only problem with North/South is the proliferation on north-west teams (manc and cheshire area especially) maybe it would be more a diagonal line, with maybe a couple of 'outliers' a bit like Colwyn Bay are now.

However maintaining a unified top division would be very difficult and may put off good teams joining due the travelling.

I can't see it being a problem, after all you'll have 7 clubs left in the Premier Division and 15 from the First Division. And all of these already play matches all over the North.