For the last couple of years, I have written from time-to-time about the increasingly parlous state of non-League football and in February 2024 I asked whether English football had a pyramid built on quicksand. Now, in May 2026 as another season concludes it is worth revisiting the state of the National League System and the clubs in it, especially as The FA is allocating clubs to their 2026-27 divisions this week.
In some respects, the situation has improved since 2024, in so far as fewer clubs have failed to finish their seasons. However, there are a number of clubs who are dropping to lower levels now the season has finished, either by choice or because of off-pitch issues. In the last 12 months, the following clubs have either lost or relinquished their place in the pyramid:
- Step 3: Widnes FC folded before the season started, which I discussed here. Hashtag United applied for voluntary relegation, but went down due to on-pitch performance.
- Step 4: Portishead Town are being relegated for failing the ground grading, which is more remarkable for the fact that they finished second in their division. VCD Athletic are folding because their new landlord has revoked their lease. Brighouse Town have withdrawn from the National League System and decided to regroup at Step 7. Mousehole have requested voluntary relegation for financial reasons. AFC Dunstable and Dunstable Town are merging.
- Step 5: AFC St Austell were expelled from the Western League in February and Nailsea & Tickenham withdrew from the same competition. West Allotment Celtic resigned from the Northern League in March while Newark & Sherwood and Helston have requested voluntary relegation. Milton United are mothballing their men’s First Team.
- Step 6: Wolverhapton Sporting Community, Allexton & New Parks and Truro City Reserves resigned from their Leagues during the season. Sunderland West End, London Colney, Long Buckby and Hillingdon Borough have all resigned from their Leagues having completed their fixtures.
That means there are least fifteen teams who have left or are leaving the non-League system. A new phoenix club – Widnes Town – has applied to join the National League system and the two Dunstable clubs become one, Dunstable FC. Assuming that Widnes Town and Dunstable FC slot in at Step 5 leaves a confirmed net loss of 14 clubs, even before you take into account clubs like City of Liverpool who suffered a spectacular relegation and appear to have been replaced as tenants of Burscough FC by Skelmersdale United. City of Liverpool have had groundshare issues before, but if they don’t have security of tenure it is highly likely the FA will exclude them from Step 6.
The English football pyramid is the largest in the world and the National League System goes from the National League at Step 1 down to 17 regionalised divisions at Step 6. There are almost 1,000 clubs within the pyramid so the list above equates to around 1.5% of those. So, where’s the problem?
The most obvious answer is that the clubs listed above are just the tip of the iceberg and for each of those, there are several who are just about surviving. Take my own club, Ashford Town (Middlesex). As I wrote last week, the Ash Trees won their divisional championship at Step 5, helped by having redeveloped their ground; the 3G pitch now in situ is proving transformative in business and playing terms alike. But at the Presentation Evening, both the Manager and the Chairman indicated that delays to the revamp caused the club to run out of money and serious thought was given to dropping out of the Pyramid and regrouping at a lower level. Thankfully, that didn’t happen and Ashford are looking forward to a return to Step 4, instead of scrapping to escape a Regional Feeder League.
If Ashford Town (Middlesex) were teetering on the brink just a year ago, despite having an ambitious facility upgrade in the works, how many other clubs are on life support? And how does the FA’s plan to expand Step 6 from 17 divisions to 24 help clubs to survive, given that joining the Pyramid requires compliance with the ground grading rules that Portishead Town fell foul of and these rules make floodlights and spectator facilities mandatory in a way they just aren’t in the Regional Feeder Leagues. How do clubs find the money and manpower to put in stands, upgrade changing rooms and install floodlights, if their ground doesn’t already have them? Once they have the facilities in place, there’s the costs of getting teams on the pitch including utilities, ground maintenance, match officials fees, player costs (be those expenses or ‘wages’), travel to away matches, stock for bars and refreshment huts, etc and so on. There’s a lot of moving parts!
The idea underpinning proposals to expand Step 6 is that by having more divisions, limited to 18 clubs each, reduces travel for the clubs least equipped to cope with high travel costs and helps to ‘balance out’ the geographical distribution of clubs. The other side of that coin, though, is that it would elevate a significant number of clubs who would need to play at suitable grounds. That presents a challenge for clubs and the governing body alike.
Football is as popular now as it has ever been, maybe even more so and to go back to Ashford as my example, the club was averaging around 200 spectators per home match during 2025-26. That’s a remarkable figure for a club playing in the ninth tier of English football, especially when you think the highest crowd Ashford got in the Southern League (one level higher) during 2012-13 was 182. Other clubs are doing even better; the club who finished second to Ashford on the pitch this season, Windsor & Eton, averaged 376 spectators per home match.
However, not every club is pulling in the crowds. In the same division as Ashford and Windsor, Hilltop and Edgware & Kingsbury are averaging 45 and 49 spectators per match respectively and a further eight clubs average fewer than 100. Not everyone watching matches will have paid to get in, for various reasons, so how do clubs cover the costs of playing games with hardly any money coming in through the turnstiles?
Perhaps we should celebrate the fact that only 1.5% of non-League clubs in the pyramid system have pulled out? It is to the enormous credit of the volunteers running football clubs up and down the country that so few go out of business, despite the enormous challenges involved. As I think I made clear last week, I am enormously grateful that Ashford Town (Middlesex) survived the problems which held up their pitch project and are now doing better on and off the field. I applaud Brighouse Town, Mousehole and the other clubs taking voluntary demotion for taking action to safeguard the futures of their clubs, even if that means taking a step back to regroup but I am saddened it came to that.
The biggest problem football has – and this is as relevant to the Premier League as it is to the Combined Counties League – is a lack of cost control. Lord Sugar called it the “prune juice” effect and is driven by hyperinflation in respect of players renumeration. Whether you are in the top flight or the tenth tier, the money spent on squads usually has a disproportionate effect on on-field performance. I know nothing about Ashford’s budget (nor do I want to) and I trust the people running the club to balance the need to put a competitive team on the pitch with the need to pay the bills. My hope is that, somehow, a balance can be found that allows non-League clubs to thrive, rather than survive.