[/quote]
Terris is talking about Canterbury specifically where he feels the local football community, got behind the provincial team model pretty well. He has doubts about whether will be the same level of local support, for a club team like Cashmere Tech.
And yes he also alludes to local club teams potentially struggling - certainly initially - when facing clubs from the higher quality Northern League.
Be interesting to know if any players from say Tee Dubs feel the same.
[/quote]
Ah yep I'm getting what you mean. It's reliant on an increase in support for the clubs because of the systematic changes which I guess isn't a guarantee. What sort of numbers do Cashmere usually get? Honestly I'm not much clued up on supporter numbers around the country in places I haven't lived.
There will normally be 100-200 (could be more or less, always hard to tell) or so watching a game when we've played there. I think what will be interesting to see at Tech is who out of their 'overseas' players do and don't play each week. There can be 7 or so overseas players on the pitch at a time. They will still be very strong locally, but still only having 4 (+1) overseas players may make it harder on a national stage.
I think personally that there will be interest in how the SI teams go in the National League, but maybe more from 'we aren't that far off' to 'we are miles off' for those teams that don't make it.
I tend to agree with Dan Terris' thoughts that a regional team seems to work here from a parochial point of view.
Looking forward to the season starting!