Could this happen?

[Joey Stewart]

I was just wondering something, you know how in the past teams have enlisted the services of 'sponsors' which have then proceeded to dismantle the original squad in favour of paid mercenaries...

Well my wondering were the opposite - what if, for example, a division 4 captain agreed to help "manage" a division 1 team which had lost their own captain but instead kicked out all the masters and moved his own players up into division one instead.

Would this be allowed?

[IM Jack Rudd]

I mean, something like that tends to happen when a team loses a sponsor: it ends up with the squad's amateur players trying to make a go of it in Division 1. (But they're still solid Div 1/2 players; such a club is a very attractive place for norm-hunting 2300-2400 players to end up.)

[Ian Thompson]

Would this be allowed?

There are no rules saying that a team in the current season has to bear any resemblance to a team of the same name from the previous season so it'd be up to the 4NCL board whether it accepted the entry or not.