Originally Posted by Zico
Have confirmed with person who attended the NewFM CLub meeting prior to the season launch.
Singleton and Thornton did not apply for NPL Licences
West Wallsend received one but handed it back in voluntarily prior to the meeting as they did not field the required youth sides.
Cessnock received theirs but had youth teams in the wrong ages and Northern advised they would take under consideration but likely would not qualify to retain Licence.
Belswans advised they would not field the youth sides due to a potential clash with Swansea Juniors academy and thus forfeited their NPL Licences on that basis.
Maitland and Valetine both retain NPL Licences
Toronto also did not field youth sides and were thus not in a position to retain the NPL Licence.
All clubs except Thornton and Singo applied and received their NPL Licence initially, but a condition of the NPL Licence was the youth sides playing under the same entity as the senior side so when a majority of the remaining clubs came to March were to be technical in breach of the Licence and voided it. Those clubs that did not meet that criteria no longer hold NPL Licences.
During initial discussion the reason the youth teams are such a mandatory condition is not so clubs have teams to automatically insert into the NPL Youth comps, clubs can field sides in A D or J grades for all Northern care, but to satisfy the club is able to manage and organise youth sides on top of their senior commitments.
Personally, I think most clubs will forgo bothering about the NPL Licence unless they believe they can challenge for the Premiership that next season (you must hold the NPL Licence prior to Round 1). Aside from that, clubs do not need the headaches of competing with local junior clubs for players/coaches to fulfil a requirement they will likely not use.
