Originally Posted by
mountainsofpain
Fourteen teams is far too many for Fourth Division. Provided no teams dropped out and we could get a couple more teams in, you could have eight teams in 4th and eight in a new 5th Division. If no new teams were to come in, you could look at having Divisions 3, 4 & 5 with eight teams each.
That would give a bit more flexibility with some of the gradings (eg Parra may be able to go to 4th and 5th Divisions, Mac Uni could have a side in each of 4th and 5th instead of both in 4th, etc), it would probably even things up a little more down in the lower grades and would hopefully encourage clubs like Parra and Penno to retain their third sides rather than thinking they are a waste of time. Plus with eight sides in the bottom divisions, it gives clubs a bit more of a chance to make the finals, which is an incentive for players (especially the newer ones) to stay around.
It's only an idea off the top of my head and I don't have the time to go into great depth about it. But I just wanted to throw it out there. Feel free to shoot it down if you wish.
Six senior comps is not new ground for Sydney footy by the way, from 1987-88 and 1992-93 we had:
Premier Division (whatever it was called then) - Seniors & Reserves
First Division (the old SFA) - Seniors and Reserves
Second Division (the old SFA 2 or whatever it was) - Seniors and Reserves
And in one season (1992), we actually had seven Senior competitions, with a Third Division (SFA 3) playing in addition to the above. That season saw 52 sides compete, in comparison with the current 54 (in order of divisions, the 52 sides comprised per division - 8, 8, 10, 10, 6, 5 & 5).
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