Backrowbandit
I've read up on it and the regs are very clear:
- in the event of the league competition not being completed the following will be the default position:
i. any club which requires a walk of more than 25m from clubhouse to pitch side will be relegated
ii. any club that hoovers shittt up off the pitch will be relegated
iii. any club with a sense of grandeur and superiority will be promoted..
Hope that helps ...
I could not find the regulations to which BRB refers.
However, I did find a little information on Wikipedia – ref National Division 3 North : Level 4 2000-01
The foot-and-mouth outbreak made relegation far from straightforward as initially the bottom two were Aspatria and Tynedale, who had played 18 games each - less than any of the other teams in the division. In Tynedale's case this was particularly hard as they were only 1 point behind 12th placed Sandal but had played six games less. In the end the RFU had to re-think relegation and used a complicated process based on early season form which meant that 14th placed Aspatria and 11th placed Walsall went down.[3][6] Aspatria dropped to North Division 1 while Walsall went into Midlands Division 1
Both Aspatria and Walsall appealed, but with no success.
Also found this on Old Rishworthians web site
In the 2000/01 season they came joint second, again coached by Peter Walker and captaincy of Daz Wade. Promotion was thwarted by the RFU imposing the "foot and mouth ruling" when calculating its position in the league, and the Club lost out by one hundredth of a point.