“I don’t think the FA will ever be in a position to say, when a club gets into financial difficulty, we’ll bail it out” that from Lord Triesman the Chairman of the Football Association this week, who told me he’s “not keen on (The FA) becoming a banker of last resort”.

Ok, so the country’s governing football body can’t, and perhaps shouldn’t, provide the cash for clubs when the barrel has been scraped, but between you, me and the goalpost, who IS there to help?

We’re just weeks away from another season which we should greet with a fanfare, pomp and ceremony, but I have to admit there’s a little bit of me feeling like the first day of school, “whoa! Look at that big scary building and who’s going to hold my hand?”

I know one such side at the moment, let’s call them Tin Whistle FC  - apologies to any team actually called that (great name by the way but any coincidence is just that). So, this Tin Whistle FC are just about to embark on a season where by all accounts they’re trying to buy themselves out of their league, an entirely new squad, big money signings and an eye on the prize. Great if it happens, a disaster if it doesn’t and the money men pull out leaving the club with massive debts to handle and that old cliché “just look what you could’ve won”.

Lord Triesman rightly says that “there are arguments for strengthening the fit and proper persons test” and that “we need to feel a greater level of assurance in people in charge at clubs” but just how are we going to get to that stage?

I’m frightened by the huge impossible task THAT would be. Old Tin Whistle FC’s situation is replicated up and down the country, and no one stands in the way because, well let’s face it, we’re all after that dream. Would you blame a fan for wanting promotion to the football league? Would you blame a fan for wanting the best team possible on the pitch? Would you blame a fan for seeing Abramovich as their ticket to the good times and welcoming him with open arms? The Russian leaves Chelsea and can you really imagine the Blues being allowed to fold? Mr local business man quits Tin Whistle FC and takes the ground with him.

Lord Triesman says: “It isn’t just a bit of real estate..it’s about running a football club”. In Triesman The FA have a man who certainly understands what Non League means to the fans, but sadly I’ve got a feeling we have whole decade of destitute clubs on the way, before we’re any closer to safeguarding grassroots clubs. Until that point I’m hoping the likes of TWFC keep a little back for a rainy day. You have been warned.

We’ve got this whizzy thing at work that allows you to search all the papers, in all the world, for absolutely anything. It’s called the internet. Have you heard of it? Now, while I think this concept will never catch on, it did allow me to find the following phrase embedded in one of our nationals. When describing the performance of Italy’s Luca Toni one broadsheet commented “A non-league striker … appeared to have occupied his body one night in the Italian team hotel.”

Imagine my surprise. Is this really the same abject performance I watched? I mean likening him to a non-league striker would suggest he was half-way decent. Right? No? Ah, I see they were trying to be ironic, suggesting non-league was the lowest of the low.

Isn’t that like suggesting Mr Top designer’s latest couture has an air of the discount shop about it? I’m sure the less-expensive brand would take exception and develop a well mannered law suit as a repost. They are, after all, a family favourite where cost doesn’t necessarily mean compromise!

So to our dear quaint non league, have we finally earned the respect to shake off the 'two pints before, during and after the game' stigma? If maybe not the jumpers for goalposts.

Off the pitch non league is, and I hope always will be, about the enjoyment of the game, fans getting involved in their clubs and helping to build that (some may say foolish, I say wistful) dream. While on the turf, you can’t doubt the passion of the “could have been contenders” relishing competitive football.

This season more than ever will test just how professional the top of grassroots has become. Can the TV and big money sponsorship deals sustain another year? Will the promised structures and cash boosts from the FA materialise, and how many clubs will we see going kaput come the end of 2008/2009?

So back to Mr Toni. Non league footballers may not be world beaters, but I wonder given three posts, a goalkeeper and a baying crowd, what percentage of penalties would have been scored by a grassroots eleven up against the Italian national side in the quarters? After all, that’s a regular week isn’t it?

I don’t know that I can ever envisage a time when the likes of Luca would be proud to wear the non league tag, but given England C beat your boys last time out, perhaps Mr Toni you’ll come to love the monika. One day, maybe just one day you’d be good enough for the Ryman League.

Impending credit crunch, in need of a profound and fundemental change and just a matter of months to turn it around before there’s unrest in the masses. Gordon Brown and Non League football, one and the same, right? There’s a real sense at grassroots level that this summer is a key turning point, for both politics and our beautiful game.

As the FA launch their vision for the next four years, this weekend there are two key matches at the home of football, two games that show there’s never been a greater gap between the top and bottom of our game. As Ebbsfleet and Torquay revel in a fairly decent level of riches available to the National game through the FA Trophy, Mick Chapman, boss at Lowestoft prepares to take his side into the FA Vase knowing although getting to Wembley is “like a dream… the pinnacle of everything.” On the flip side, however, “leading up to the final you don’t make much… for a national competition it’s not that great and the FA needs to put a bit more money for sides like us.”

As Mick points out, the FA Vase, year on year, has greater participation than the FA Trophy but take a look on the FA website at the total prize funds and you’ll see a variation from £425,200 in the Vase, £741,000 in the Trophy and a staggering £9,652,500 for the FA Cup. Now I know which one brings in the cash, through extra media coverage, bigger fan bases and all the Premier League top totty, but when that equates to just £700 for reaching the first round proper of the Vase compared to £4000 for the Trophy and a whopping £16000 for the Cup, surely the gap could be tighter?

Factor in the extra travelling costs in the Vase, (with some teams this year travelling the whole length of the country) then there are players taking days off work, and the rising cost in petrol, and what are you left with?

So could we be facing a situation where teams like this year’s finalists, Lowestoft and Kirkham & Wesham, find taking part in the Football Association Challenge Vase just all too costly?

There are two things that stand out for me: take one argument and look at the highest ever gate, (when 27,754 watched Truro City beat AFC Totton at Wembley last year) and you could say, proportionally, the FA get the prize money about right; or you could look at the fact no FA Vase winner has yet reached the Football League and ask yourself if we are doing enough to close the gap?

FA Chairman Lord Triesman said: “Every supporter wants to know if The FA has a serious, long-term plan for English football, addressing the biggest issues facing the game.”

If we’re to grow the game, create better players, facilities and entertainment, then we’ve got to start buying in at the level that counts, and this Summer, Lord Triesman, is your real opportunity to get it right, by digging deep, starting with an improvement in the rewards for succeeding in the FA Vase.


One of the most important things my Granny ever taught me (apart from always having a clean hankie and NOT eating in the street) was to live within your means. If you could afford a to buy Roller go ahead; if not, opt for the bus.

"If you’re ever passing Kettering" is not a phrase I’d normally identify with. It used to be, I’d been a couple of times to the stadium with the glittering "Ks and Es", but not of late. However I’ve a strange sensation that I could soon be drawn to it, even compelled to visit. The Poppies you see have gone and got themselves their very own shop, slap bang in the centre of town.

I wouldn’t like any team to implode. I remember some eager Dagenham and Redbridge fans telling me they’d won promotion to the football league in February last year, only to endure a nervous, sweaty March before the job was eventually done in April.

So imagine my surprise when my Dad (normally the harbinger of doom) pronounced he’s "thinking about getting a Championship t-shirt made-up". Fate has well and truly been tempted.

It’s not just my team, Chelmsford City, who are stealing a march on the Non League pyramid and prompting rash trips to the t-shirt printers. A quick look around and you’ll find the likes of Witton Albion, Merstham, Tiptree and Atherstone Town all thumping their way around 10 points clear in their respective leagues. So have they started breaking out the bubbly? Have they ‘eck.

After yet another set of fixtures had been rained off last year, there was a suggestion mooted, (and to be fair most years this happens) that we do away with football in the months of January and February. Now how would this affect my dear old Dad? The first part of the year for me is when titles and dreams are won and lost. I’m not suggesting any of these teams are going to "do a Newcastle circa 1996" when the Magpies threw away a 12 point lead. However if a side does self-combust it’ll be when the pitches are horrendous, the appetite dwindling and those all important "odd" results start to turn up.

It’s the same at the bottom of the league, without fail I hear Derby in the Premier League described as "preparing for the Championship", but you’ll never hear that in grassroots football. There’s a running total on Tony Kempster’s site of sides in his results section with "nul points", 17 left at last count. Now rather than rolling out the coffins, there’s relief each week when another breaks the duck.

Hope, drama, desperation (in tiny measures this season, please) is what I follow football for, and the reason why this week I turned to my egg-chasing Super League loving friend and smiled. In 2008 he’ll be supporting a sport where there’s no relegation or promotion. Imagine that? No one contemplating running off a t-shirt or two for the promotees, no one crying into their scarfs at the final whistle. Just a wooden spoon.

"ne'er cast a clout til May is out", was a fond one with the farmers in the old days of yore. "Don’t print the t-shirt till you’ve won the thing" doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but I shall be reminding my Dad of it every day between now and the very last kick of the season.

Brazil: Pele, world cup winners, sexy football, the English invented it, the Brazilians perfected it. There’s a lot we’ve got to thank the South Americans for when it comes to the development of the game we now call football, but how about slipping the future of Non League onto that list?

I had an email the other day about how to protect grassroots football clubs from going under. The suggestion? Follow the Brazilian method of making sure all football clubs are just that, clubs. Create a membership with fees, a brand, a world outside of the four corners of the pitch, where supporters feel like they belong to a collective. Seems like it’s not such a far fetched idea, I mean Brazil has plenty of things I’d like to adopt (the weather, a coastline of over 7,367 kilometres) but also plenty of things I’m not too keen on (low minimum wage and the fifth highest number of reptiles, I’m not good with snakes), so perhaps they’ve got it right with their football?

It seems my correspondent is not alone, and the “Brazilian approach” to our Non League football clubs is a hot topic. The reason? Well it seems the demise of Spartan South Midlands side Ruislip Manor has touched a cord. Under threat because they can’t find a big money backer and more importantly volunteers to help run it, they've spent the past couple of weeks hoping lovers of all things non league would put their money where their mouth is.

Now I’m all for fans getting involved in a football club, and a strong believer in Supporters Direct (helping fans work on football boards) but the problem seems to be that like everything else, there’s not enough time for us to truly "get with the project." We buy a season ticket, a programme, a lottery draw at half-time, but how many of us can dedicate 5,10, 30 hours a week to volunteering for the side? Gone are the days when a football club was the community draw, where volunteering was easy, because it felt like you were all in on it.

I think, like my emailer, we’d all like to believe in the romantic notion that we’re part of a community, but when you hear of neighbours taking knives to each other over out-of-control hedges, little old ladies being mugged for their pension books, the sense of community seems a far flung idea. Perhaps therefore it’s the government that should look to Brazil as the model for a way forward (beaches, and weather accepted). The Brazilians, despite a third of their population living in slums, revere football in the same way we revere pubs (doesn't it make you feel proud) if we can restore some pride in the community through everyone doing their bit, rather than expecting someone else to pick up the slack, then we might go someway to restoring some pride in ourselves.

You know the noise men make when they see a ball fly through a crowd of players and land smack bang in the wedding tackle? Now, I'm not one to name drop, but I was sitting talking to Dave Anderson (former St Albans and AFC Wimbledon boss), Willie Wordsworth (former Poet and Non League football pundit) and Howard Krais (Wealdstone Chairman) the other day when Howard announced Wealdstone had been nomadic for nearly 20 years.

 "Ooowsh" was kind of the sound made by the two men present, and I must admit from me. None of us thought it had been quite that long. Shame we had to admit it live on the radio.

How can any side, whatever the ins and outs of it, survive without their own ground for two decades?

What has or hasn't happened to these teams is of course a matter for conjecture. But what we do agree on is that up and down the country our Non League football grounds are being bought up, demolished and all too often the clubs are left with nothing.

Take a quick tot up and how many Non League football grounds are currently earmarked for the chop? Ten? Twenty? I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve spotted an advert tacked up for a building company behind a goal, and then spotted another, and another? There’s gold in them thar hills see?

Now, I'm not saying they're all up to no good. If you can make it work successfully, flog your ground to a developer, let them build you a new out of town development and then count the cost of looking after the place.

Take Sittingbourne FC, once described by the Beeb as the Manchester United of Non League football? To cut a long story short they sold up their "Bull Ground", moved to Central Park and a whopping 2,000 seater stand, ran into huge financial problems and now play next door at Bourne Park with a stadium rebuilt thanks to volunteers; ie the fans.

Up and down the pyramid there are fans clinging on to a dream. We’ve all done it, believed we can be a Football League team, believed this next chairman’s the one to take us to the promised land, but at some point the bank manager will tell us the harsh reality. Football, whatever league you’re in, is a business and sadly sometimes clubs have to realise that the level they’re at might just well be the level they can cope with.

I’m not saying we stop dreaming, but it’s the responsibility of every man, woman and puppet we elect to run our councils to put their arm around our New Writtle Streets and ward off those pesky developers. After all, anyone that’s suddenly heard of Chasetown FC knows a football club is those councillors one shot at fame (bar X factor or a mass murder of course).

This week was a good week to get divorced. Apparently the first working day of the year is the busiest day of the year for filing for (in the immortal words of Dolly Parton/Tammy Wynette) d.i.v.o.r.c.e. Which given the stress of Christmas (tantamount to births, deaths and marriages) is just about what you’d expect.

And it seems like this year, more than most, there’s an epidemic of Partons/Wynettes. The case of Dave Anderson given the boot at St Albans on New Year’s day. Or hows about Welling United, parting company with their player-manager Neil Smith a week later, due to well a lack of results?

You can see why it happens. In just  five months you go through extreme highs, lows and plenty of shouting, but is it acceptable when you’ve had enough to just give the manager the love chucker?

Increasingly, it seems easier to get rid of the gaffer rather than ride out the storm. Welling fans though might argue just five wins in twenty-four league matches was enough of a storm to ride.

But how would it be different if we applied the laws of the land  to football management?  According to quite a few legal experts (here’s some advice from one called divorce aid) there’s some key questions we should be asking:

How did you feel when your marriage worked? (first round of the Fa Cup, beating your nearest and smelliest rivals) 
Why did it go wrong and when was this? (3 defeats in a row, the inability to hit the rear end of a cow with a banjo) 
What was your part in this? Be truthful. (I might have shouted obscenities at our number 7) 
What do you want and who will it hurt the most? (promotion to the football league and a 40,000 seater stadium) 
Is what you are fighting about, or neglecting, worth the breakup? (yes if it gets us the promotion to the football league and the 40,000 seater stadium)

What can you do to save it? (Sack the manager)

Done. Right there’s my step by step guide to divorcing your manager, simple really, except that’s where divorce-aid fails me. They quote the immortal words of Martin Luther King Junior 'The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.'  I totally disagree, sitting where I do at the top of the stand or from the comfort of my living room I know far more about football management then they’ll ever know. Right?

Maybe just once before we next sign the Divorce papers we should consider where the next bloomin’ sacrificial goat is coming from.

Happy New Year...

Right. It’s January 2008, which apparently means we’re now officially allowed to panic over the preparations (or lack thereof) for the 2012 Olympics. Once Beijing is done and dusted this summer, in the eyes of the world it’s our problem to sort out the world's greatest sporting competition.

Fear not, Gordon, Ken et al. Non League’s here to help.

In May 1906, Baron de Coubertin (the man behind the modern Olympiad) got together a bunch of IOC members and artists, who decided to organise artistic competitions at the Olympics. Yes, come 1928 even Town Planning was deemed an Olympic sport (perhaps we could do with that now). There was a sculpture class, writing, and one of the stars was Luxembourg painter Jean Jacoby who won two gold medals in 1924 and 1928.

So this is what we need for 2012: a bit of culture. 

Step forward exhibit A) your grassroots footballer.

Take a listen or watch back to any of the FA Cup commentaries featuring Non League “minnows” and there’s always someone banging on about a painter (and decorator), and if you look further, there’s bound to be a town planner. So they've got the credentials to enter an artistic event, and even better they play half decent football too.

We’ve heard about the move (slowly becoming a juggernaut) behind a Non League World Cup, so why not go one better? If the big boys can’t sort out who’ll represent Great Britain in the football, send in the representatives of Non League.

It's common practice now for sides to enter their Under 23 sides in the Olympics and professional players can now take part. So, gone are the days of "shamateurism", where a player had to claim to be amateur but still take the odd payment from his club.

The last mainly English team that tried to qualify for the Olympics was in 1971 when they took on Bulgaria at Wembley. There was everyone from John Swannell (Hendon) to Peter Hardcastle (Skelmersdale) and Joe Adams (Slough).

Nearly 40 years on and the grassroots game's littered with players with call-ups to some of the African teams and plenty of the England C team now ply their trade in the Football League, so the standard would be there for a bit of healthy competition.

Out of all the sports heading to the Olympics this year, football should be the one we're going all out for. But once again Team GB will not be there. If they'd left it to us, we'd be a shoe-in for a medal. Paul Fairclough has a fairly settled squad and given recent performances at the four nations, Beijing wouldn't have been too far off the radar.

New year, new start, and a chance for us to get right what the rest of 'em can't stop arguing about.

We're being offered a place for football at London 2012. So rubber stamp it a Non League team now. After all how many of us would fancy a trip to Wembley, Hampden Park and the Millenium Stadium to see Non League footballers step out for the United Kingdom national football team?

Please sir, I want … less Christmas drudgery and more thigh slapping crackers.. like Heybridge Swifts, the return of the fallen heroes, the remake, part deux.

Christmas is about the familiar, but this Christmas let's shake it up a bit. Radical I know, but how about when 3pm swings by on the 25th the Queen thanks the nation and ends with the words “now on BBC One, something to stir the heart and bond our great Isle (She should come to me more often) a re-run of the 1966 World Cup final, in full, Philip they even play our song…”

What the big cheese TV execs would say lord only knows, they’ve already pencilled in Eastenders Part 1 for Christmas Day (the car lot blows up) Eastenders Part 2 for Boxing Day (Rowly comes back from the dead and makes off with Well-‘ard) and that’s not forgetting part 3, on the 27th (he’s not your father, we didn’t know who your father was). Scrap it. Burn it. Recycle it.

Here’s what I propose, 25th: 1966 re-reun, 26th: Non League action, live from Scraley Road, the home of Heybridge Swifts, 27th a re-run of the Christmas classic, when Chelmsford met Barnet and Frank Peterson got rid of his excess Christmas pud on the half way line.

There’s no greater tradition than the Non League (advent) calendar. It’s something the professional game has sadly lost. Apart from the odd derby, on Boxing day, the likes of Aston Villa head to Chelsea and Arsenal travel to Portsmouth, while us hardy souls of the Ryman Prem can enjoy a “Swift” trip down the road there will be an almighty ding-dong in Middlesex where Ashford take on Staines. The battle for our shores as Margate tackle Ramsgate and city pride as AFC Wimbledon take on Carshalton.

Christmas after all is all about meeting up with people you’re related to but at the most would like to spend no more than 90 minutes with. Plus, where better to be than watching a group of players (and this is a sweeping generalisation) who 99 % of the year are fitter than you, but come the 1% of the year between Christmas and New Year are equally glad for the short trip and the later start that Christmas with all the trimmings dictates.

Where else could the referee agree he’s a prize turkey, than in Non League football?

So without further ado, your majesty if you will, take it away “Happy Non League”.

I remember my first and only interview with Tony Roberts (Dagenham and Redbridge Goalkeeper) it was on the pitch at the now renamed London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Stadium about five bubbly moments after they’d gone and won promotion to the Football League. He shook my hand, which I remember thinking was odd, A) because I’d never shaken the hand of someone with such a large glove on and B) wasn’t this the hand which could and should have ended his career?

Just nine years before and Tony had been forced to quit football, a knuckle injury meaning an insurance payout and with it a pledge of allegiance to never playing professional football again. The Football League and Insurance company’s loss, the world of grassroots gain.

As we now know Tony came back, striking a deal to settle his pay-out, but what worries me is how long before a life in full-time conference football is deemed “professional” and  also off the menu?

Of course there will be other ways around it. Only this week a loophole in his compensation pay-off means former Welsh international Matthew Jones can ply his trade in the Principality Welsh Premier - the insurance, you see rules him out of playing professionally in England and Scotland - but not Wales.

And what then? We have a welsh league ready to do battle with the likes of Real Madrid’s Galacticos, or even better insurance payees pimping themselves to the top teams lower down non league under the banner “I’ll help get you up then love you and leave you?”

One thing’s clear, the FA need to sort out who the responsibility falls to when it comes to player injuries so that our footballers aren’t forced to sign away their careers. Should smaller clubs, with no money to keep themselves afloat guarantee their injured players cash? Or Should the FA create a pool of money to tide over our heroes who may or may not recover from one too many over zealous lunges?

I say, if a player wants to keep on playing and we want to keep watching them then what’s the issue?  Pay and play up.

No one’s cruel enough to take away a dream of just one more game in the conference or football league, although I guess those bunting festooned fans awaiting the arrival of the newly crocked Michael Owen on the Severn Bridge might like to argue.