LAST Saturday Worcester City played a match at Lowestoft. The weekend before they were in Boston.

If ever proof was needed that the geographical structure of non-league football is in desperate need of a re-think, these two fixtures provide it.

In the space of seven days, City have travelled the thick end of 700 miles for two matches — the equivalent of driving into central Europe.

For a part-time team not exactly flushed with cash, this just doesn’t make any sense and it’s time for a change.

Around a decade ago, there were three regionalised feeder leagues into the Conference, each promoting one team.

That was then changed to wedge another tier below the Conference, creating the north and south divisions that we have now.

Each of these promotes two teams, one automatically and one via the play-offs, introduced to give clubs treading mid-table water in the previous set-up something to aspire to.

But it has significantly ramped up the travelling, leading to the trips Worcester, and other clubs, have had to make in recent weeks.

When you take into account that the Blue and Whites have also had to visit Yorkshire and Cumbria this season, it begins to get quite expensive for the team and supporters alike.

A return to three feeder leagues — one for the south, Midlands and north — would seem to make much more sense.

That way, City would be playing teams more local to them, providing more derby matches, larger crowds and increased gate receipts.

A quick scan through the Conference North and South and the upper echelons of the Southern League Premier Division and Northern League Premier Division, which would need to be included in a shake-up, shows what a Midlands/Central division could look like.

Hypothetically, you could have Barwell, Bath City, Brackley Town, Buxton, Chippenham Town, Cirencester Town, Corby Town, Gloucester City, Halesowen Town, Hednesford Town, Ilkeston, Leamington, Oxford City, Paulton Rovers, Redditch United, Rushall Olympic, Solihull Moors, Stourbridge, Tamworth, Weston-super-Mare, Worcester City.

That’s 21 teams so we’ve almost got a workable division. The same could be done for Manchester northwards and everywhere south of the M4 corridor.

While I appreciate that is a rough framework and that there will always be some teams whose location would not be favourable in any reorganisation, something has to be done to improve the situation.

Given the current problems at Kidderminster Harriers, you could even make a case for including the Conference in any regionalisation but there would unlikely be an appetite for that.

The argument that the higher you climb the more travelling you should expect is beginning to wear thin. What use are leagues that cover huge swathes of the country when teams cannot afford to play in them?