Only 4 games to go until the season comes to a conclusion and we have our first teams to cement their place in League Two for the 2025/2026 season: Cheltenham Town Gillingham Easter weekend will no doubt see a few others add their name to the list with Shrewsbury, Barrow, Newport, Bromley and Fleetwood all looking likely this coming Friday. Will continue to amend the list gameweek by gameweek until we have the final 24!
From league 1 Shrewsbury, cambridge and crawley are almost certs, then you’re a battle between burton and bristol rovers. Northampton, mansfield, wigan and Peterborough are a win away from basically securing safety (with GD over Bristol Rovers)
The league looks likely much weaker next season again and filled with what you would call traditional non league clubs it will be a pretty good one no doubt in terms of entertainment if not quality Cambridge Crawley Shrewsbury Bristol rovers /Burton Salford Newport Bromley Barnet Swindon Harrogate Fleetwood Chesterfield Crewe Gillingham Mk Dons Cheltenham Tranmere Accrington Barrow Play off winner NL could be anyone Same with promotion out of league 2 but 18 or 19 teams already almost certain to be in this league next season . Some alright away days but not many who travel well joining the league and it will look weaker in terms of attendances whoever goes up from league 2 and comes up from NL ; there won't be any Bradfords next time getting 20k assuming they go . The average total for this league next season will be the lowest in many a year 24/25- 5995 (so far ) 23/24- 6323 22/23- 5894 If Bradford go + Carlisle and 2 or 3 of those better supported teams in the league (Vale/Donny/Notts/Wimbledon/) And with who they will be replaced by you are looking at a league with a lot of teams sub 5k gates you would have thought .
Literally crawling pal. It’s been an eye opener when so used to 2 relegation spots when you can be awful and get away with it, it’s just unrelenting. The standard is way higher. You’ve done well for a first season back, late run gives you an outside shot of the playoffs - a bit like us next season - you’ve a) more of an idea of the lay of the land and b) a transfer window to move on players who’ve served well but aren’t quite upto standard.
As far as decent away following at Grimsby ( assuming we don’t go up) next season I think they will be few and far between. If we lose Bradford, Donny, Notts and Port Vale to league 1 and then Carlisle to NL, that leaves Chesterfield as one of very few likely to bring 600+
I suppose you have to hope Oldham,York or Southend go up who might bring a few on their day . It's emptying out so badly since we got back in the league of decent followings first couple of years relatively decent but this is turning into NL+ now when we sell out all the away ends and they only bring double figures it will be annoying ; still just assuming we don't go up but you never know we might make it and all the big one's in league 1 can be saying the same about us 'I never thought we would have to go back to that dump ' lol
If we get over the line our target is to finsh above Northampton, Burton/Br, Mansfield and at least one of the other sides who scrape up with us, we should be stronger than when we came down that is for certain and we know who is good enough or not so should be acheivable.
Mansfield have had the Vale experience from our first season, start well on the crest of a wave, get to January, the big boys spend big and you get caught out... hopefully they dont make the mistakes we made that following summer and end up going down on second season syndrome. If we go up which is by no means certain we will obviously have a much bigger budget than last time and Darren Moore wont make the striker mistakes that Flitcroft did... would be interesting to see how Tolaj steps up if no one comes and takes him! but our squad now is much better than the one which went down and arguably the one that stayed up in the first season.
I’ve mentioned it before but for us it’s pace which has done us. technical wise the players are alright and we’re a better side that got auto promotion last season. As you’ll know you can get away with being slow in L2 in general but not here you’ll get rinsed. When the fixture list throws Rotherham away and Reading at home over Easter it’s never going to be easy, followed up by a nice easy trip to Birmingham Hope you make it up though! Surprised Walsall have collapsed the way they have…
Yeah we’ll finish 10th or so and I reckon it’s about what we deserve. We’ve been really good on our day and battered sides then been harrowing the week after so lack of experience, inconsistency and a foul run with injuries have probably put us about where we should be. The best 2 sides I’ve seen us play are Accy and MK though which probably says a lot about the league this year.
Wow it looks depressing next season. Another reason we have to get out of this league. Not only the dull games to look forward to but the away followings/income we would miss out on would cost us a lot of money.
A few less long northern away days welcome. Worst thing about not being in L1 this season is missing out on all those great local games/derbies/trips we’d actually take a good following to (namely Birmingham, Cambridge, Charlton, Leyton Orient, Northampton, Peterborough, Reading, Stevenage, Wycombe). Next season will still be shite but adding the likes of Barnet and Cambridge is a slight improvement to balance things out a bit.
Feel like you have done your time now tbh Away followings will be the worst ever for sure the only mildly amusing thing is how will sky be able to sell their big games of the weekend when it's Barnet V Barrow or Newport V Grimsby as your big one's unless they have a say in the choice of fixtures before they are drawn out if that makes sense to fix up the odd bigger game every week - I'm not sure if they can though ? (I hope they can't )
If we somehow manage to get over the line automatically, I truly hope you win the playoffs, and not just because you haven't won at Valley Parade this century!
Thanks mate I hope we make it badly for all those big one's ! But if we don't i'll be happy for whoever makes it some good clubs up the top with some good posters on here aswell ; imagine a lot will be lost off of here with the Carlisle lot likely to go and the volume of posters from the top few clubs on here
