Hampshire Premier League to vote on giving clubs a potential £3,000 freebie for 2020/21

Locks Heath take on Hayling United in one of the last HPL games to be played before the season was declared null and void. Next season, all the HPL clubs could be given a £100 'goodwill gesture' of free affiliations and registrations. Picture: Keith Woodland

The HPL committee will discuss the idea - which will see each club get £100 worth of free affiliations and registrations - at a video conference meeting on April 8.

For the now cancelled 2019/20 season, each of the 16 Senior Division clubs and the 12 Division 1 clubs had to pay £50 to affiliate to the league. They also had to splash out another £20 to enter the HPL Cup, even though history will sadly show no club actually won it due to the Covid-19 crisis.

In addition, each player registration cost the clubs £1.50 each.

The proposal which will be voted on is that the £70 affiliation fees be waived for next season, and each club will also get 20 free registrations - the equivalent of £30. In all, it’s a three-figure freebie.

There could well be two new clubs in the HPL next season as well, as the league have the capacity to run a 14-team second tier.

Two clubs - Mid-Solent Leaguers Harvest Home and Salisbury area club Clarendon - are the only two that have applied.

Harvest’s ‘promotion’ from the MSL will need to be rubber-stamped by the Hampshire FA’s inter-leagues committee, while Clarendon are a totally new team who haven’t been playing in any league in 2019/20.

Should they both get the green light at the HPL’s annual meeting - scheduled for June 14 at Hamble Club - then the league will boast 30 clubs next season.

And 30 x £100 is where the figure of £3,000 mentioned in the first sentence comes from.