Gateshead Soup

There'd be something almost comfortingly retro about non-league play-offs getting messed up in the way that has just happened in the National League were it not for the ramifications.

There was a time when the end of every non-league season felt a little like this. The “AGM Cup”, a tournament played behind closed doors in league boardrooms the length and breadth of the country at the start of June, felt real, as though no promotion or relegation could be confirmed until the constitution of the following season’s teams were announced.

This has become less of an issue over time. Financial regulations and stadium matters are now dealt with months ahead of time, with plenty of warning signs for work that clubs may need to carry out in order to ensure promotion come the end of the season. But while some callbacks from the past can be comforting, what happened in the National League over the course of the last weekend of their regular season this time around was somewhat less so.

Unlike the last weekend of last season, the National League title was already sewn, with Chesterfield having tied that up weeks ago. But the race for the division’s six play-off places was still very much alive. The top five—Barnet, Bromley, Altrincham, Solihull Moors and Gateshead—had already done enough to book their places, with the final place being taken by Halifax Town after Aldershot could only draw at Dagenham. Seems pretty straightforward, yes?

The six-team play-offs were introduced in 2017 with the aim of extending interest down the table. The format is fairly straightforward; second and third place are given home semi-final draws, while fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh play ‘eliminator’ matches. As ever with non-league play-offs, these are one-leg matches and home advantage always goes to the higher-placed team.

But on this occasion, there was a complication with the news that Gateshead were to be prevented from getting promotion due to an issue with their tenancy of the International Stadium. So what happens to that empty space? The National League put out a statement confirming that: “Under the rules, the club cannot be replaced, and they will be removed from the planned fixture on Tuesday 23 April 2024. The outcome of this is that Solihull Moors will get a bye to the semi-finals.”

Except… that wasn’t the rules, and a couple of hours later they put out a further statement in which they advised that, “National League rules state that in the event of a club being removed from the playoffs and not being replaced, the structure of the draw should be adjusted based on final league positions.” Instead, Altrincham would be given a walk-over into the semi-finals and Solihull Moors would be playing Halifax Town in the only remaining ‘eliminator’ match.

So, the National League didn’t seem to know its own rules but corrected themselves a couple of hours later. Certainly not an ideal position for a national football league with a TV contract and everything to find themselves in, but recoverable. But hold on a minute, at the heart of this story of a club being denied the right to play for a place in the EFL, and that means that there is a lot to unpick, here.

First of all, it should be mentioned that the International Stadium in Gateshead is far from a perfect football venue. It has an athletics track a long way from its main stand, and were it to be replaced by something more football-appropriate few tears would be shed among supporters. But that’s not the issue. It meets the requirements for National League football and the EFL allow a grace period for clubs to redevelop so long as they meet those rules.

But this isn’t about that. This is about security of tenure. In order to meet EFL rules, clubs are required to demonstrate they have a lease on their ground for at least ten years. This is not a requirement to be part of the National League rules, which are based more closely on the FA’s standardised rules (PDF), 2.3.2 of which says, “A Club must either (a) own the freehold of the Ground or (b) as at 31 March in each year, have a lease of the Ground which does not expire until at least the end of the next Playing Season or (c) possess a written agreement for the use of the Ground which is acceptable to The FA and the Competition”.

The matter caused such a stir online that the EFL had to put out a statement of their own, and it was one for the ages, bristling with mild irritation at this situation having come to pass in the first place:

All National League Clubs are required to apply annually to the EFL should they wish to be eligible for promotion, which Gateshead did alongside other Clubs by the 30 November deadline. Working with the EFL, Clubs then had until 1 March to ensure that all the relevant criteria of EFL Regulations were met.

As Gateshead failed to meet the security of tenure requirement, the EFL rejected its application. The Club appealed the League's decision claiming that it was irrational or unreasonable, but that appeal has now been rejected after consideration by an independent Arbitrator.

As the EFL strongly believes in the principles of promotion and relegation it is therefore highly disappointing that appropriate solutions have not been put in place over the previous two-year period, as avoidable circumstances are preventing Gateshead from progressing up the pyramid even if the Club achieves success through sporting merit.

The League hopes that Gateshead and the relevant stakeholders can address this matter so that the Club can meet the obligations of EFL membership and be eligible for promotion in future seasons.

So, who actually is to blame, here? The EFL seem fairly clear about it. The application was rejected because Gateshead couldn’t provide that security of tenure. Having failed to do so the club appealed, and the appeal was rejected as well. It’s certainly fair to say that, with play-offs scheduled for three days after the end of the normal season, there’s no space for issues such as this to be happening right at the end of the season.

But of course, Gateshead could argue that this is beyond their control. After all, they can’t give themselves a ten-year lease at the International Stadium. As such, eyes to turn to yet another party in this clusterfuck, Gateshead Council, who own the stadium, and on this Super Statement Sunday they also had a lot to say about all of this:

We have offered several times to work with all parties to find a solution and we recently provided a letter which would give the league the assurances they were seeking, whilst at the same time protecting the interests of the council. The assurances included a 10 year agreement between the council and Gateshead Football Club, that includes a break clause in the agreement to ensure that any new operator is able to negotiate new terms with the club. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be enough for the English Football League.

But this didn’t come before Council Leader Martin Gannon had tweeted ‘n’ deleted that “The stadium currently operates at a deficit of £860k a year”, a comment which predictably drew even more ire from those who saw it. Gateshead FC, of course, also issued a statement of their own, though considering the details of what exactly had been said, it didn’t go into as much detail as others.

The upshot of this all is that everybody has questions to answer. Why did the council believe that “The assurances included a 10 year agreement between the council and Gateshead Football Club, that includes a break clause in the agreement to ensure that any new operator is able to negotiate new terms with the club” would be acceptable to the EFL when their rules simply don’t include space for break clauses? Why is it deemed necessary for the EFL to have a ten-year security of tenure rules when the National League’s rules are so much more lenient? Why was the decision made to not make this matter public until the very last day of the season, even though this had been slowly marinating for the previous five months or so?

Because the real losers here are Gateshead’s supporters. It’s difficult to reach any other conclusion than that their entire National League season has been a bit of a waste of time. This club has just completed a season during which one away league match was less than 80 miles from home. It should be a scandal that supporters make this sort of a commitment, only to be rug-pulled over something that is nothing to do with them, which shines everybody else in a bad light, and over which they have no control.

And older Gateshead supporters with long memories could be allowed might even be allowed an extra layer of aggrievement, considering the way in which the previous Gateshead club was hoiked out of the Football League in 1960, voted out when they’d only finished third from bottom in Division Four and having not previously finished in a reelection place in 23 years. Even the history of the club on the newer club’s website describes the events of that summer as having been “unceremoniously cast aside in favour of the more geographically favourable Peterborough United in 1960”.

So, what does happen next for Gateshead? The EFL are clearly not going to bend their rules. They’d presumably have done it this season, were they going to. And it seems similarly unlikely that the rules can be aligned to bring this all together. Many National League clubs don’t have the money to bring their ground up to EFL regulations in one hit, while new leases can take time to agree. That’s why there’s some degree of give in the rules, including the grace period to get necessary work done. What’s the prognosis for them? Will they leave a stadium that can take them no higher than the National League? Their next match is the FA Trophy final against Halifax on the 11th May, which now promises to be… spicy.

All we can say for certain right now is the clearest victims in this case are the supporters themselves. Ever was it thus.