One of the complaints about the current structure of the Championship season is that the presence of play-offs effectively negates what has gone in the six months before.

Clubs wonder why they should lavish what little money they have on paying for a player between August and December when they can get an equally good one before the transfer window shuts in January. Just in time for the play-offs.

And spectators ask why they should part with their hard-earned when the 22-game regular campaign is little more than a glorified pre-season – and their clubs treat it as such.

“We’ll turn up for the ones that matter,” they reason.

Even commentators become a little blasé, especially given the fact they wouldn’t have needed the services of a soothsayer nor recourse to tea leaves and entrails to have predicted events would unfold as they have.

Which leaves us with the current situation. This Sunday, Birmingham & Solihull and Moseley go head to head for the sixth time in two seasons with the possibility the hosts will lose their second tier status.

The latest encounter, which takes place at Damson Park this weekend, will see Bees relegated if they fail to win – and even victory might not be enough.

That would leave them needing to beat Esher on Saturday week and hoping Moseley lose to Plymouth.

All of which is based on the assumption all the bonus points go Bees’ way and very few to their local rivals. Improbable, but not impossible.

As a result we are left with the dawning reality that by the end of the month the West Midlands will have one Championship team rather than the three it boasted less than a year ago. Quelle surprise, who’da thunk it?

So, let us analyse the big showdown.

What’s at stake?

Which ever club goes down – and it might yet be Esher if they are defeated in their final two games – will lose more than £300,000 in central funding. That’s the vast bulk of their £0.5m playing budget.

But the financial hit wouldn’t end there. Sponsors and corporate box and season ticket holders could reasonably balk at paying the same rates for a less high profile product.

And without someone to underwrite those losses there would be a mass exodus of players. One Moseley player recently estimated a squad turnover of around 95 per cent.

That would leave the relegated club having to fish around for part-time players and trying to build a squad on the hoof in a division inhabited by experienced campaigners and ambitious upstarts, many of whom have dual registration agreements with Premiership clubs.

Play-off journey

Of the two sides Bees came into the play-offs with more impetus. The 27-20 defeat by Worcester had given them real cause for optimism and earned generous praise from Warriors’ boss Richard Hill.