Consultation on the Division 1 and Division 2 team Nationals

The Trust reveals the results of its consultation on the structure of the Division 1 and Division 2 team Nationals, with a full 2022 Coarse match calendar to be released tomorrow on Wednesday 22nd December.

With the support of its Competitions Committee, the Angling Trust has undertaken a comprehensive review of the structure of its iconic Division 1 and Division 2 National Team Championships. This review looked at issues around economics, stewarding, increasing participation through structural change and venue rotation / choice.

As a result of this review, a decision has been made to require each team at Div.1 and Div.2 to provide 1 travelling Steward. This will ease the pressure on finding sufficient stewards and also improve the economics, allowing more funds to be put towards pay-outs and improving the quality of the medals, to make them more meaningful.

The review also considered whether structural changes should be made to the Division 1 and 2 Nationals. After looking at a range of options, the Trust then sought feedback from current and past participating teams on the 3 leading options, together with an option for “no change”:

· Create a large Premier Division (c.40 teams), with a second tier of two smaller Regional Divisions of equal status, one North and one South (c.25 teams each).

· Create a smaller Premier Division (c.20 teams), with a second tier of two larger Regional Divisions of equal status, one North and one South (c.35 teams each).

· Divide the 2 National Divisions into 3 equal-sized hierarchical National Divisions – Divisions 1, 2 and 3.

The result of this consultation is that the Angling Trust believes there is currently no mandate for changing the structure of the Division 1 and 2 Nationals.

Angling Trust CEO Jamie Cook commented; “We have surveyed over 100 existing team captains and a 66% response rate is fairly solid. We were keen to hear from lapsed teams who no longer enter and learn how we can attract more of these teams to return – however from the 200+ we contacted only 5 responded which is a concern. We are listening to our customers and will be working with our superb volunteer group to engage more teams to get involved with these iconic events. Reducing direct costs in stewarding will allow us to pay-out more, we have been transparent over every penny collected and spent for all of the 2021 Nationals and we will continue this into 2022”.

Whilst the review is now complete, the Angling Trust has committed to a further review in 3-years time in 2024. In the meantime, we will work with the match fishing community to make the current structures a success by searching for more viable venues, reducing costs and looking at pay-outs where we can, providing meaningful medals, driving attendance, and finding sponsorship.

The methodology, results and commentary can be found HERE