Fairford Town manager Jody Bevan has revealed his team have been given a surprise invitation to apply for promotion to the Southern Football League after the FA created a points per game table based off the last two non-league null and voided seasons.
Bevan admits despite the shock proposal, he won’t be getting too carried away and is still preparing the side for life in the Hellenic League.
“Things look pretty promising, there’s a lot of things going on behind the scenes. There’s a chance, which has caught us by surprise really, but there’s a chance we might get promoted so we are waiting for the outcome on that,” said Bevan.
“I don’t quite know how the process works, but what the FA have done is they’ve looked at our league and looked at our performances across the two seasons that have been cancelled. They’ve then created a points per game table over the two seasons and off the back of that we were third in that table.
“It’s more hope than expectation and whilst I’m not expecting to go up, we were invited to apply and we have applied,” added the manager.
In the 2019/20 Uhlsport Hellenic League, Fairford were third after 23 games, with three games in hand on league leaders Westfields. The side then were sixth the following year but due to lockdown in England, both seasons were null and voided.
“Since I became the manager four years ago that was the target we set ourselves with the aim to get into the Southern League. You always want to get a promotion from winning a league that’s the ideal way to be considered for promotion, but last season we were flying in the league and it got null and voided that did feel like a bit of a kick in the teeth,” said Bevan.
“So in that respect it’s nice if we do go up and it’s a good recognition of the work that’s taken place over the last two years and longer than that in all honesty.”
The 42-year-old admitted that his side will face a big shock if the surprise promotion does go through.
“Admittingly if we did get promoted it would be a huge challenge. Going from a team who’s gone from challenging in the Hellenic league to, being perfectly honest if we do get into the Southern South and West, it would be all efforts to survive that season.
“I’m not making no bones about that it will be a huge culture shock if it does happen.”
“We’re told a decision will be made on the 17th of May, so we’ve been led to believe it’s going to be a relatively quick decision in a week or two and we should have an idea of where we will be,” confirmed Bevan.
“But I fully expect us to be in the Hellenic League, if it ends up being in the Southern League then I’d be delighted.”
The club will find out whether the promotion takes place or not in the next couple of weeks, still leaving Bevan plenty of time to prepare the team for the new season in August.
