They might be on their way to Wembley in the FA Trophy, but the idea of running a football club and picking the team through the magic of Web 2.0 looks doomed just months after MyFC took over Ebbsfleet United. Their tagline reads “Own the club and pick the team”, but many now feel that for the ordinary members, neither is really true.
Ian King looks at non-League football in Essex, and offers a cautionary tale for supporters whose teams rely on the financial input of one man who could up sticks at any moment.
When Lincoln City and Enfield met in the quarter-finals of the FA Trophy in March 1988, it marked a transitional point in the history of non-League football which, Ian King says, is surprisingly healthy today despite the Premier League’s hegemony.
As Milton Keynes Dons achieve success on the field and start to be lauded by the press off it, we continue our series looking at the origins of the club, and today see how it was decided Wimbledon F.C. could be franchised to Milton Keynes.
“Let’s go for a little walk” is Havant & Waterlooville’s terrace victory tune, as your editor discovered when they played Lewes recently in a Conference South clash. Our resident non-league expert, Ian King, thinks they’ll be singing that tune either way after they head to Anfield this weekend, explaining the past and present of the potential giant-killers.
Our recent series on non-league football attracted considerable attention, as we explored the strengths and weaknesses of the foundation of the English game below the Premier League and the Football League. Ian King will be writing regularly for us on the non-league game and kicks his column off by telling us what you need to know about non-league.
Since we’ve been talking non-league all week, it seems fitting to end it with Chasetown F.C.’s elimination from the F.A. Cup today. The Southern League team (originally known as Chase Terrace Old Scholars Youth Club; their ground still reflects this, being called the Scholars Ground) were the lowest-ranked team ever to make it to the […]
Continuing our non-league series this week, here’s the final photo from Jon Hall at Terrace Images
Weymouth 2, Bury 2. FA Cup 1st Round, 12th November 2006, Wessex Stadium
We’ve been looking at English non-league football all week, and in something of a call-to-arms, Dave Boyle suggests that more supporters of non-league clubs need to take charge of their own destinies.
The last five years as an AFC Wimbledon fan have immersed me in non-League football. Up to then, I thought of non-League in much […]
