You are lucky Spirit withdraw from trying for the spot. He is probably just going to beat the Gym League then get a spot in the Gym League so if he does that bad for you.
I don't know if Steel was your best choice because our former Steel Gym Leader, The Spirit of Time just came back and he was a former G.Mod and GL Staff before he moved to back to his borned country then came back. So he may try for the spot and he is super good. He is Shadow best friend as well so he will probably get the spot back since he was one of the founder of the gym league on here.
I also want to try for a gym league spot for about a year, but everytime I try when I only had DS so I didn't have a good team. Now since I have PO I am compective and trying for Poison.