Birtles: Premiership plan would kill football

WHAT is it that makes football special? Why is it the most popular sport in this country?

What is it about the game that has people screaming at the top of their lungs with joy one week and weeping with despair the next?

It is the ability to dream; to dare to hold lofty expectations and then having those hopes crushed.

It is about pondering the possibilities and daring to believe that the impossible might just be possible after all.

It is about Notts County making it into the top flight of the game in the early 90s then facing the mighty Manchester United at Old Trafford in their first fixture.

It is about Hull City going from the basement division into the Premiership in just a few short, glorious years.

It is Wimbledon going from non-league obscurity to winning the FA Cup and fighting it out with the country's top sides.

It is seeing sides like Stoke, Wolves and Burnley defy the odds to take their place among the big guns.

It is looking on as teams like Leeds United, Newcastle, Manchester City, Leicester City and yes, unfortunately, Nottingham Forest, find themselves plunged into the lower divisions and, eventually, clawing their way out again.

Football is about the unexpected, it is about remarkable glories and painful, unforeseen failures.

The glory of the game is that it is just so beautifully unpredictable. Anything can and does happen.

It is why we still get excited about the FA Cup. It is David versus Goliath, it is about shocks, spills and thrills.

I just hope that I am not the only person who understands this.

Because, if Bolton chairman Phil Gartside gets his way, none of this will be possible any more.

Gartside has proposed a two-tier Premiership, made up of 18 teams in each, with no relegation into or promotion from the Football League.

In other words, an elite top two divisions of football, with everyone else shut out.

And there is only one reason for this to happen. Money.

Such plans are not about making football better or improving competition at the top level.

It might be dressed up as such, but it is nothing of the sort.

It is about protecting teams like Bolton who have managed to battle their way into the elite and want to ensure that they do not drop out of it again.

It is self preservation, nothing else.

Gartside was quoted this week as saying: "I'm not a visionary. I'm just interested in the game and how I can help to make it better."

Well, here's a tip Phil, one way to make the game better is to take your idea and file it where the sun does not shine.

Because I look at the list of pros and cons and, I'll be honest, I struggle to come up with a single viable reasonable reason to do it.

Yes, it will make those at the top level richer, it will make their futures more secure, it will ensure that they remain in the promised land forever and a day.

But it will also kill the rest of football.

Where would we be if Championship, League One and even League Two sides could not at least dream that, one day, they could fight their way to the very pinnacle of football?

At the minute, it is unlikely for some, but not impossible. It is not a closed shop.

Notts County and their new owners want to make the Magpies a top flight club again, they harbour lofty ambitions to make the world's oldest football league club a success again.

And, after years of misery, the black and white half of the city can dare to hope.

But not if Gartside gets his way, what would they have left to strive for?

To win what is now League One?

That would be great – but not if that is suddenly the highest point they can reach.

Do we want to become like American sport, where they have the major leagues and then the minors?

I suspect Gartside would be happy with that.

But I implore every other Premiership chairman to think logically about this.

At the minute – while some of the football might sometimes be better in La Liga – we have the best, most fiercely contested league in the world.

Why try to fix something that isn't broken?

Gartside's proposal to include Rangers and Celtic in the new set-up was swiftly, emphatically rejected.

I hope the rest of his ideas are given the same short shrift, for the sake of football.

Because everyone has to be able to have a dream.