League Two 2011-12: guide to the new season

The clubs Recipe for success There are no rules in this division, and those that exist are routinely broken. So even though six of the last seven Conference champions have finished the following season in the bottom half of League Two, the latest is favourite for the title. Then again, Crawley are loaded. Always the bridesmaid Shrewsbury won seven of their last nine games to finish only one point off automatic promotion and promptly lost to Torquay, who had scraped into the play-offs on goal difference. The bad news is that in recent years they have alternated play-off qualification with mid-table-at-best misery, so it could be a long year ahead. Nouveau riche Crawley Town's Hong Kong-based backers made them the big spenders of non-league last year and show no inclination to put their chequebook away. "The plan is to get to League One in five years," said the manager Steve Evans last year, and they might do it in two. Who should be looking over their shoulder Since they won promotion from the conference in 2005 it's been a long, slow decline for Barnet, who would have gone down last season but for Lincoln's absurd season-ending slump and must hope that new appointment Lawrie Sanchez rediscovers his managerial mojo. The players Could play at a higher level Rotherham's 24-year-old goal machine Adam le Fondre has been the subject of bids from Scunthorpe this summer. "It's going to take a hell of an offer to let him go," said his manager, Andy Scott. The international brigade Torquay snapped up the Kenya international Taiwo Atieno on a free transfer this summer after he impressed on trial. Born in Brixton, Atieno's identical twin brother Kehinde Roberts is a guard on West Chester University's basketball team. Champagne tastes on a beer budget Atieno has a famous (well, she was once) girlfriend in the shape of former Sugababe Keisha Buchanan. Fact is stranger than fiction The Dagenham & Redbridge striker Phil Walsh is Frasier star Kelsey Grammer's brother-in-law. Grammer's wedding to air hostess Kayte, 26 years his junior, in February this year featured a four-and-a-half- foot carrot cake and Walsh's other brother Stuart singing Feels Like Home by Randy Newman. The managers On an upward trajectory Still only 44 and with nearly 450 games under his belt as manager, Chris Wilder is quietly impressing at Oxford United. The former Chelsea defender Michael Duberry signed up this summer: "I didn't come here to take a back seat and just do whatever," he said. "I like the way the club's going and I want to be part of something successful." Hanging on in there Paolo Di Canio's appointment might have shot Swindon up to second-favourites for promotion but his right-wing political leanings immediately scared away a sponsor and he's already one of the bookies' favourites for an early exit. "He's infectious," says the chairman Jeremy Wray – not necessarily a positive attribute, as anyone who lived through the black death will tell you. One for the future After leading Torquay United to last season's play-off final Paul Buckle defected to freshly-relegated Bristol Rovers. "I want to manage at the top level in the end," says the 40-year-old, whose unusual tactics include his sides regularly starting with four strikers on the pitch.