HOW THE MIGHTY HAVE FALLEN !

League 1 is quickly turning into the elephant's graveyard of former Premiership clubs.

Next season will see Leeds United, Norwich City, Southampton and Charlton Athletic all competing in the third tier of english football. Each of them should be playing at a higher level, all have been in the EPL in the last five years and next season, even with the likes of Yeovil and Hartlepool coming to call, they are still likely to attract average crowds of 20,000 + .

This is fantastic news of course for newly promoted clubs like my beloved Brentford and Exeter City, our supporters are already dreaming of visits to Elland and Carrow Road. The main Bees fans forum already has five pages of comments regarding who is planning to go to the Leeds game and how many tickets we will be allocated, the fixture list is not even announced for a month yet !

Goodness knows what Charlton fans think, two years ago they were playing London derby games with Tottenham, Arsenal, Chelsea and the Hammers, last year it was Palace, now, if Millwall win their playoff final, it will be Brentford and Orient. Which even I accept, is not going to have them racing to check the newly released fixtures on June 17th, at 10am for anyone (like me) a little more excited by the prospect of League 1 football.

EPL attendances might be falling, with three clubs this season operating on under 80% of capacity, but the "third division" looks set for another bumper year, with even the smaller clubs set to put up the "sold out" notices on a regular basis when these big clubs come calling in 2009-10.

Good luck.