League Two Automatic Promotion

[Stuffed Crust Pizza]

Your started for ten - why in League Two are the top three teams awarded automatic promotion while the Championship and League One offer it solely to the Winners and Runners-up?

[Ian Royal]

because more teams go up and down.

[RoyalChicagoFC]

I was just pondering this yesterday, and within the overall context of "[I never really believed that we would, but anyway] thank FSM we didn't go down to League One" --reasons being it's a prison that's hard to get out of (Leeds United, very possibly Charlton, Saints missing out on the play-offs with their deduction and starting on zero points with all the rest come August) and it's easier to fall down to the bottom division...but then, League Two is easier to climb out of with the four promotions, and it's harder to tumble out of the League so long as you keep your nose clean and don't totally suck.

So in answer, I think that it's the way that it is so to make things more hopeful for the bottom-rung sides and as an inducement for the ones in the middle not to get too comfortable with where they are.

In other words, it's all about money.

[Fox Talbot]

Four promotion spots is unusually generous for the Football League and the only occasion this has been allowed.

It started in 1958/59 when Div 3 South and Div 3 North were amalgamated to form Div 3 and Div 4 - two divs of 24 clubs. Maybe they said 4 up rather than the usual two to keep it interesting. The bottom 4 in Div had to apply for re-election.

Div Two (i.e. the Championship) used to be 22 clubs (same as Div One) and two up two down until 1973/74 then it became 3 up three down but still 22 clubs per division until the late 80s.