Suppose in a way relegation for me is not the end of the world
I stopped lining the Pension Fund’s coffers on the day when Dann and Fox were shipped out last minute.com and decided to just do away games.
Its been great but gets a bit boring after a while so new places to go to where we may pick up 3 points and have a good day out
I see Salford City will get crossed off my ground visit to do list, what’s the betting that Salford City away will be our opening fixture
UTS
Watched that pile of garbage today and somehow managed to stay awake, made our game at Accrington look good. Saw Salford last season at Blyth they were equally as putrid in a 1-0 win with about 20 away fans. Kirkham and Wesham (that’s Fylde with a fancy new chairman and a few quid) played in front of just under 20,000 in the FA Vase final of 2008. These clubs are awful, simply awful. I’m fed up of hearing how much money they’ve got, so what?? They are crap beyond belief in every way which a football club can be and I fully expect us to wipe the floor with them next season en-route to a quick return to our natural level. Salford versus Crawley in a league fixture UUURGGHHH! makes your flesh creep.
Come on Geordie calm down,deep breaths mate…NURSE!
Will be taking a few deep breaths next season when I go to Salford away, just to get the old bellows going for a good old chorus of “where were you when you were ■■■■”.
Can’t remember going to Macclesfield.
Posh booze in Knutsford on the way next season?
Likewise can we lord it up on the way to the Vegan outfit somewhere in the Cotswolds?
Then back to the ye olde middens of Burslem and Crewe.
Oh, may get a bucket of deep fried chicken to take in to Northampton for the usual bad tempered hour and a half stand off with their stewards and whichever knobhead goalkeeper they have next term.
I agree. Football couldn’t win today.
The notion of promotion from non-league is laudable. For too long the likes of Wycombe, Kidderminster,Yeovil and Altrincham were denied a shot at playing league football by there being an unnatural dam in the flow of the pyramid.
Unfortunately it also opened the door for very wealthy people to take virtual reality football games into the real world at the expense of clubs who’s league roots ran deep and meaningful within their communities for over 100 years.
Football and sport in general should afford fairytales. In fact the genuine fairytales (if that’s not an oxymoron) are beautiful. The two incarnations of Wimbledon - brilliant. Oxford’s rise from non-league to major trophy winners fantastic. Accrington Stanley rising from the ashes inspiring.
Salford isn’t a fairytale. It’s a project that ripped the soul and identity out of a club. Remember when we were re-christened “Paul Merson’s Walsall” by the media? That was ■■■■. But at least he didn’t make us change our colours or put the whole jeopardy of the club at his whim.
I know a few of us on here do lower non-league occasionally. The essence of those clubs are the community ties and soul that drive them. The characters that support them in every way. Literally painting the stands in the summer and doing other jobs around the place to save a tenner here and a score there. In my neck of the woods people support Marine and not Liverpool for a reason. Preferring Burscough away to Barcelona Away. Being one of 25 going to Grantham rather than one of 25,000 going to Munich. And of course they’d like someone with a few quid to help them out. Give them more smiles. But equally they understand the essence of the place is the “ground improvement fund” with lads and lasses doing daft things to contribute a few extra quid.
Salford took around 4,000 today. The community obviously not latching on the the BBC sponsored project. How could it? How could the “dirty old town” suddenly identify with a football team that pays £4,000 a week to a pretty average football player? A club that has £2.5m worth of debt? If huge leveraged debt and overpaid players are your thing and you live in Salford, there is every chance that you nailed your colours to another mast a long long time ago.
Salford averaged 117 for two years running 5 and 6 years ago. Take out the few away fans you’re probably left with 100 regulars. No doubt many of them will have been there today and no doubt they enjoyed rattling around Wembley. Pinching themselves. A dream. Got to be.
But I’m equally convinced that each and every one of them will also feel a sense of loss. What was once theirs isn’t any more. No need to rock up with the paint brush this summer or the lawn mower to cut the grass on the banks surrounding the pitch. And whilst there are twenty times more people watching your team with you, you know it isn’t their team. Not their proper team anyway. And who are these people anyway? You used to be on first name terms with nearly every other supporter. And you remember that’s why you supported Salford in the first place. The family/community thing away from the nonsense of the professional game. But now you’re part of it. New red kit, very practical modern ground, crowds measured in thousands and not tens. That must be good. It must be, right?
They’ve still got Karen Baird there, on the BBC thing she was secretary and seems to have been bumped up to chairwoman now.
Very hard to disagree with essence of your post as usual P.T.
BTW changed my mind on Newport a bit, seems it’s one of those grounds where away fans actually get part of the best stand and only 10 minutes from Cardiff. Actually not sure who I want to go out from that division as in their own way they’re all good away trips. Been to Tranmere before though which probably swings it.
@geordiesaddler just watched the Sunderland highlights. Amazed at all the empty seats behind the goal and Michael Brown said they only got 26k. Did they jack the prices up as seems bizarre to me they get 33k for run of the mill games v …ahem Walsall and for the biggest of the season it’s one of the lowest home gates all year.
They only had 20 more people at their playoff semi than Bromsgrove sporting had for the final 3 levels down
I’ll settle for vision right now.
I think Stevenage, Crawley, Accrington, Forest Green were some of the first clubs to take advantage of the increased number of clubs being promoted from non-league. After another visit from one of the new clubs (with roughly 45 in the away end - I remember counting them) I commented on here how it was fundamentally sad that old football clubs, steeped in history and with large followings, were being replaced by such ‘tinpot’ clubs. I recall I was largely derided (as usual).
I still feel the same. However, like it or lump it these days money talks more than anything else in the game. Like I have said elsewhere many times about our own predicament, old school chairmen are being out-thought and outspent by ambitious boards lower down the pyramid in non league. Number of fans or history means absolutely nothing. You can’t blame the likes of Salford, Fylde, Boreham Wood - their chairman are simply playing the money game placed in front of them. But what value those clubs add to the league set-up with their tiny stadiums, small support and non existant away numbers when they are replacing clubs like Notts Country, Chesterfield, Leyton Orient, Wrexham, is open to debate.
I strongly suspect any reflective contemplation by the fans of Salford will be bulldozed by the prospect of playing Oldham and the ambition to look ever upwards.
Football has become a survival of the fittest in a classic Darwinian model. Hoover up as much financial nourishment as possible, or be prepared to slip inexorably down the food-chain.
I wouldn’t savour the prospect of supporting a club that was complacent, didn’t recognise this reality, or was somehow debilitated by having it’s income stream diverted for benefit of an avaricious individual, however big a ‘fan’ he purported to be.
This post is brilliant. Sums up the situation perfectly. You should submit it to the BBC.
Hoping Newport don’t go up, I’ve got a ■■■■ up in Swansea riding on it!
I mainly agree about the state of football in general and the soul of Walsall FC is difficult to find to these days which is why my experience at Marine was an easier comparison.
The thing about the Darwinian food chain is that human beings got to the top too quickly which means we’re mal-adjusted and hugely dysfunctional to the point when it is only a matter of time before our “civilisation” destroys itself. The planet will be fine, in fact better for our absence cos we’ve turned the place into a bit of a ■■■■-tip. The same will happen when the current professional game eats itself. It too is mal- adjusted and dysfunctional to the point it will implode too. But the “game” will be OK. For as long as there are round things to kick and stuff to kick them between the “game” will be fine however much wailing goes on when the huge clubs begin to fail.
Salford are a symptom of dysfunction. And whilst I get that many would take us benefitting from that dysfunction rather than being downwind of it all the time, I’m not sure it would quite be “us”.
I give you our Wembley experience as an exhibit. Six or seven times our usual support turned up which cosmetically was “great”. Like Salford is cosmetically “great”. But for those of us have watched this wretched team over the years it was a slightly out of body sterile experience. Chesterfield Away the week after was somewhat of a relief to be honest. The 800 who were joyous at Preston for the semi final re-united at Chesterfield collectively going “didn’t see you at Wembley mate, how was it for you?” Glad to be back in our own company after all the guests and visitors had left.
That Chesterfield game was great, we were god awful on the pitch but it was proper Walsall in the stands.
Even that is being diluted though, take Shrewsbury away for example, I know it wasn’t a good place for us to be in (literally, as well as physically), but 1600 fans should have made a hell of a noise, and only 2 or 3 around me were singing.
I remember the game at the Old Gay in 2007, and I know circumstances were different, but the atmosphere was so much better.
Brilliant post PT, agree with every word. Up here Blyth Spartans, despite having their best ever league season in the division both Salford and Fylde were in last year couldn’t afford new training kit last season such is the strain of traveling to the likes of Hereford and Brackley for league games. Rumours before the play-offs were that if they won promotion they simply wouldn’t have been able to afford to go up! Every away game, win or lose, their players and coaching staff line up and shake hands with the traveling fans, and typically, when hearing about the financial problems the fans have launched a fund specifically for the coaching staff which has to-date raised £1300, not enough to cover the week’s wages of a Salford squad player I suspect.
Regarding the low crowd at Sunderland, its simply because their end of season has sucked all the momentum out of them. There is a real divide now amongst their support between those moaning, and those moaning about the ones moaning! We have a nightly football phone in on the local radio up here and the Makems arn’t a happy bunch. Its as though they’ve spent all season talking about how they are a League One club (whilst sneakily believing that they’re not and would get out of it like last time), then all of a sudden they’ve finished 5th playing badly, because take Mcgeady out of their team and they are basically bog standard League One, as we discovered when playing them. They also have a very bizarre dynamic which is well known, basically that the likes of Oviedo and Whatmore are still on Premier League wages (rumoured to be upwards of 50k a week), while the rest of the more recent signings are all on typical League One money. Consenus seems to be If they don’t get up this year they’re in big trouble, and if they do get up they’re in even bigger trouble!! I bet they wish they had Salford’s board instead of a bunch of well meaning blokes from Eastleigh FC.
I see what you’re saying,but its always been a case of survival of the fittest.I see nothing wrong with Salford city getting financed by a rich benefactor(s).Nobody cares if Wolves or any one of a dozen Championship/premiership clubs gets a rich benefactor.
The football league shouldn’t be a closed shop,on the other hand,if a clubs facilities don’t come up to standard,or there are other reasons that they don’t meet football league standards,then so be it.They would probably end up failing halfway through a season,and causing chaos.
Teams like Kidderminster would have stayed in the league if they had had some rich benefactor.That would have been nice to have another local team but they weren’t up to it.I think Salford City will stay and progress in the football league,unless someone pulls the plug on their money supply.
I’m sure if someone offered to bankroll Blyth Spartans,they would snatch their hands off,and look forward to whatever success the extra money brought with it.We all got excited when Terry Ramsden took over and promised us the world,but that’s the other side of the coin with a big investment from a benefactor,easy come,easy go,and then its all about how the club can learn become self sufficient again.
The one good thing about Walsall is that it’s easy to get to from almost anywhere. Quite a lot of other supporters like us for that.
The team has to give the supporters something to sing about. Wasn’t much of that last season with that inept bunch of wasters (the players not the supporters!)