April 13, 2007
A rose by any other name…
Walter Pless in his latest comment on the league structures asks,
“Why copy the idiotic system used in England’s professional set-up, where you have the Premier League (first division), the Championship League (second division), and then League One (third division) and League Two (fourth division), when everyone knows they’re divisions one to four?”
I am inclined to agree especially when you consider the English leagues are full time and totally professional in their nature. The added bonus for these leagues is that it ’sounds’ more impressive when trying to squeeze the unholy dollar (pound in their case) out of prospective sponsors. To attempt something like that here in Tasmania would just be funny, if not bordering on sad and pathetic!!
My personal belief differs slightly to Walter’s as I believe the top league should be known as the Premier League and with all ‘ranked’ leagues under that in descending order. So the current Div.1 would become Div.2 and so on down to Div.4-5 or whatever. The only rule not to align to this formula would be that there would be one league known as the Veteran’s League, but it would be a true veteran’s league, not some mickey mouse league where clubs stick the 26 year old who suddenly decides he’s going to make his debut as a fottballer.
So what are your perceptions? Should we follow the EPL professional example or follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle and just be honest about it?
I tend to agree with you Blackjack, Premier League, Div 1, Div 2 etc. Having the top flight league known as Division 1 (despite many European Competitions eg Serie A being known in a similiar light) is a little boring quite frankly. But remember the English leagues are trying to get sponsorship and the Championship is actually the Coca Cola Championship. To call the standard they play Div 3 or 4 is almost degrading because leagues 1 and 2 are arguably better than our a league. But to implement it here would be pathetic like you said.
Comment by 1878 — April 13, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
trying to explain our league names to anyone who doesnt understand soccer (which is the majority of the Tasmanian population) is very hard. Cricket is A-grade, b-grade, etc., so is hockey, aussie rules is too massive to have just one central league, so has no grading. Soccer should Keep It Simple and just be Div 1, 2,etc OR my pet preference is A-League, B-League, C-league, etc (since we like to align ourselves with the national A-League comp, lets go all the way).
Comment by fab — April 16, 2007 @ 10:50 am