The history lessons which should excite York City and show the task facing Harrogate Town

History is there to be rewritten, but it does underline the task the Sulphurites face back in non-league football after six years away, and gives huge encouragement to York City after a decade in non-league football sorting themselves out.

Since promotion and relegation was introduced in 1987, the Conference has become English league football's unofficial fifth division, its top half arguably stronger than the bottom half of League Two.

Boston United, Carlisle United, Forest Green Rovers, Hartlepool United, Rochdale, Scunthorpe United, Southend United, Sutton United and Yeovil Town have all played in the Football League, as have the ancestors of FC Halifax Town and Gateshead. Almost all its clubs are full-time professionals.

Carlisle and Forest Green are managed by ex-top-flight stars Mark Hughes and Robbie Savage.

Three of last season's division, York included, drew gates higher than the 2025-26 League Two average, six more than Harrogate's 3,054.

And without the financial restrictions imposed on league clubs, there is some serious money sloshing about. Antoni Sarcevic was captain of League One Bolton Wanderers when he was lured to then-Conference side Stockport County in 2021; his now-Bradford City team-mate Paul Mullin was reputedly on £4,000 a week at Wrexham at a time when only 19 League Two players were believed to be earning more.

None of this counts for much if you do not use it well, but since re-election was ditched 39 years ago, every team promoted has stayed up the next season. Ten have gone up again, Wrexham twice.

It makes a nonsense of the Conference only having one automatic and one promotion spot.

By contrast, only three relegated teams have come straight back up as champions, and Lincoln City and Darlington did it in the first three years. Grimsby Town (2022), Bristol Rovers (2015), Carlisle United (2005) and Shrewsbury Town (2004), are the only sides to boomerang back via what are now six-team play-offs.

This season, Morecambe have done what York did in 2018 and been relegated again.

It is a world away from the trampoline between Premier League and Championship.

Even though they come down a much stronger club than the one which won the Conference play-offs in the Covid-curtailed 2019-20 season having built carefully for a decade-and-a-half under manager Simon Weaver and his dad and chairman Irving, Harrogate do not automatically become one of the division's big fish. Even if they did, it would not mean much.

Southend United – 101 unbroken years in the Football League until 2021, and average gates above 27 league clubs – lost in the end-of-season play-offs, as did Hughes' Carlisle (average attendance 7,611). Rochdale spent 102 years in the 92 but have been stuck outside for the last four, and 106 points this season have not got them out yet. They must beat Boreham Wood at Wembley on Sunday to escape.

There is talk of fresh investment at Wetherby Road this summer, but to suddenly become Flash Harrys would not sit well with them.

In League Two, they always kept some of their non-league roots, regularly tapping its market for players.

There is no right or wrong way to get to the Football League, but shortcuts are not the answer for the Sulphurites.