OUFC

Well basically the teams have been deducted points for failing to register players properly. Unlike in the Football League, players have to be registered every season, not just when they sign (in the case of Oxford's Eddie Hutchinson, he had already been at the club for 3 years when this happened). The Conference must be about the only organisation in the world who still use faxes instead of emails and there is no online registration, as there is for even Sunday League football. Certain faxes seem to have 'disappeared', resulting in the Conference supposedly never receiving the registration forms for these players. To add insult to injury, the Conference is incapable of checking registration properly, leading to players playing for months unregistered without the issue ever being brought to light (in fact, it is believed that if a full audit were to take place, many more 'unregistered' players would be uncovered) and the Conference rules state that points must be deducted for all games where the unregistered player started, regardless of why they weren't registered. To put it simply, the Conference couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery!

Anyone who follows non league football may have heard about recent points deductions given to 4 clubs in the Blue Square Premier and Blue Square South (Oxford United, Mansfield Town, Crawley Town and Bognor Regis Town) because of failings in the Conference's own registration procedures. It would be a great help to us all if you could take just a couple of minutes to sign a petition to be presented to the Conference board against these injustices. Thanks! http://www.petitiononline.com/confpts/petition.html