Non League Football

[Gerrumonside ref]

19 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Yes I know but we’ll have to agree to differ as well just carry on endlessly hijacking the non league thread. Let’s just agree that I think top flight football was better in the 80s and you don’t. For the record I think non-league is much better now than then. 

It’s not that I think one is better it’s just that not everything about 80s top flight football was wonderful as a match going fan and there’s aspects of the culture that have changed for the better as I made the point of saying and others have said too.  I’m sure you know this too as a long standing fan of the game.

I guess if you’re a Norwich fan though that was their golden era along with the early 90s, coming hot on the heels of Ipswich Town’s own period as a top dog it must have tasted all the sweeter.

Anyway, as you say happy to leave it there in our Forest ‘how did they do it’ and crack on with the non league chat.

Edited December 31, 2024 by Gerrumonside ref

[Gerrumonside ref]

@Eddie Out of interest South Liverpool have been playing in the same league as Longridge Town.

My godson plays for the juniors up front and it’s just north of Preston in an area dominated by BAE systems.

They've got a nice compact little modern ground with spectacular views of Lancashire if you ever think about a day trip away. 

It’s a nice part of the world.  

[Eddie]

13 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

Looks like they're groundsharing with Marine now?

My nephew follows them (Marine) quite a bit these days.

No South are at Jericho Lane in South Liverpool, they’ve been there for years. Marine have just got planning permission to move to a new ground I think, which is a shame in some ways but Rossett Park has held them back as iirc they weren’t allowed into the Conference with it but they couldn’t  develop the stand in question as there are houses right behind. 

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

3 hours ago, Gerrumonside ref said:

@Eddie Out of interest South Liverpool have been playing in the same league as Longridge Town.

My godson plays for the juniors up front and it’s just north of Preston in an area dominated by BAE systems.

They've got a nice compact little modern ground with spectacular views of Lancashire if you ever think about a day trip away. 

It’s a nice part of the world.  

My mates son has been on loan in goal for Longridge for the last month or so. He’s enjoying his time there. 

[Pen-Y-Bont Crusader]

4 hours ago, Eddie said:

Who did you play for and when? I may have seen you play. 

I doubt it I was only in youth teams playing there back in the mid-late 80s.

[Eddie]

No googling - who won the first ever National League (then the Alliance Premier League) in 79/80? 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

1 hour ago, Eddie said:

No googling - who won the first ever National League (then the Alliance Premier League) in 79/80? 

Altrincham? Won the first two, I think..?

[Eddie]

27 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Altrincham? Won the first two, I think..?

Boom. I’m ashamed to admit I thought it was Enfield before I looked. Who won the third? 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

7 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Boom. I’m ashamed to admit I thought it was Enfield before I looked. Who won the third? 

I'm not sure on that one, will have to leave that for our ginger friend to answer! 

[wilsontown]

I do watch a fair bit of non-league. I almost don't count York City though they've been non-league for most of the last 20 years. I also watch other lower league sides from round and about. I don't really go to Tadcaster Albion anymore as the dereliction of the town perpetrated by Humprey Smith is too depressing. Harrogate Railway and Knaresborough Town are always worth the short trip from York as you can have a few scoops in Knaresborough. Not been for a while, I wonder if either are at home on Saturday...

Edited December 31, 2024 by wilsontown

[The Hallucinating Goose]

Gutted this morning, Beverley are losing one of their best players. Olly Baldwin is transferring to Barton. Nevertheless, all the best to him for the rest of his career.

[Eddie]

11 minutes ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

Gutted this morning, Beverley are losing one of their best players. Olly Baldwin is transferring to Barton. Nevertheless, all the best to him for the rest of his career.

I may be getting the wrong club, but didn’t Beverley have an Italian international play some games for you a few years back? Like when Socrates played for Guiseley and Puskas played for South Liverpool. 

[The Hallucinating Goose]

5 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I may be getting the wrong club, but didn’t Beverley have an Italian international play some games for you a few years back? Like when Socrates played for Guiseley and Puskas played for South Liverpool. 

Yeah, in 2022 Daniele Mannini, formerly of Napoli played a couple of games for us. He ran into our chairman when he was walking his dog and our chairman told him about the team and I think jokingly said he could play for us and he agreed lol 

[gingerjon]

15 hours ago, The Hallucinating Goose said:

I'm not sure on that one, will have to leave that for our ginger friend to answer! 

Slightly ahead of when I would have a clue so I’ll need to Google!

[Gerrumonside ref]

Colne Dynamos maybe?

[Josef K]

Rochdale’s derby game Vs Altrincham game pp, they are have real trouble with the pitch again. 

[Hopping Mad]

16 hours ago, wilsontown said:

I do watch a fair bit of non-league. I almost don't count York City though they've been non-league for most of the last 20 years. I also watch other lower league sides from round and about. I don't really go to Tadcaster Albion anymore as the dereliction of the town perpetrated by Humprey Smith is too depressing. Harrogate Railway and Knaresborough Town are always worth the short trip from York as you can have a few scoops in Knaresborough. Not been for a while, I wonder if either are at home on Saturday...

I had the misfortune to be at Knaresborough Town on December 28. In common with a number of other neutrals, I went because so few leagues were playing that day. Finished 0-0. It was awful!

Edited January 1 by Hopping Mad

[Hopping Mad]

18 hours ago, Eddie said:

No googling - who won the first ever National League (then the Alliance Premier League) in 79/80? 

An interesting read, that league table. 

So few clubs still at the top level (i.e. the National League): Altrincham, Barnet, Boston, Ebbsfleet (formerly Gravesend & Northfleet), Wealdstone (now sharing, having lost their ground).

Barrow, of course, are back in the Football League. Weymouth look nailed-on this season for relegation to step three, where Redditch and Stafford are languishing.

Quite a few of the others subsequently went bust: Bangor, Kettering, Leamington, Maidstone, Northwich, Nuneaton, Scarborough, Telford, Worcester. All re-formed, as 'phoenix' clubs (albeit, in the cases of Bangor, Northwich and Scarborough, very messily; each had/has two reincarnations).

Edited January 1 by Hopping Mad

[gingerjon]

6 minutes ago, Hopping Mad said:

An interesting read, that league table. 

So few clubs still at the top level (i.e. the National League): Altrincham, Barnet, Boston, Ebbsfleet (formerly Gravesend & Northfleet), Wealdstone (now sharing, having lost their ground).

Barrow, of course, are back in the Football League. Weymouth look nailed-on this season for relegation to step three, where Redditch and Stafford are languishing.

Quite a few of the others subsequently went bust: Bangor, Kettering, Leamington, Maidstone, Northwich, Nuneaton, Scarborough, Telford, Worcester. All re-formed, as 'phoenix' clubs.

There’s some interesting stories in that mix.

Bangor had a proper “getting shafted by an owner” from which they are only now recovering. They even had the classic two clubs at the same time for a bit of a season, I think.

[Hopping Mad]

6 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

There’s some interesting stories in that mix.

Bangor had a proper “getting shafted by an owner” from which they are only now recovering. They even had the classic two clubs at the same time for a bit of a season, I think.

The Vaughan era. Remembered, without fondness, at Chester too.

I see Bangor 1876 plan, from 2025-26, to call themselves Bangor City 1876.

Edited January 1 by Hopping Mad

[Eddie]

14 minutes ago, Hopping Mad said:

An interesting read, that league table. 

So few clubs still at the top level (i.e. the National League): Altrincham, Barnet, Boston, Ebbsfleet (formerly Gravesend & Northfleet), Wealdstone (now sharing, having lost their ground).

Barrow, of course, are back in the Football League. Weymouth look nailed-on this season for relegation to step three, where Redditch and Stafford are languishing.

Quite a few of the others subsequently went bust: Bangor, Kettering, Leamington, Maidstone, Northwich, Nuneaton, Scarborough, Telford, Worcester. All re-formed, as 'phoenix' clubs (albeit, in the cases of Bangor, Northwich and Scarborough, very messily; each had/has two reincarnations).

Incredible to think that if automatic promotion had come in three years sooner then Runcorn would have got into the football league. 

[Hopping Mad]

8 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Incredible to think that if automatic promotion had come in three years sooner then Runcorn would have got into the football league. 

When I was at Liverpool University, in the early 80s, we used to go to Runcorn, now and again. Linnets never had the support at Canal Street to sustain a Football League club (or, as it turned out, even a step one club). Another once leading non-league club that folded. Their 'phoenix', Runcorn Linnets, have risen to step four, the West Division of the Northern Prem.

Edited January 1 by Hopping Mad

[gingerjon]

3 minutes ago, Eddie said:

Incredible to think that if automatic promotion had come in three years sooner then Runcorn would have got into the football league. 

I still struggle to accept that Bromley are allowed to call themselves a league club.

[Hopping Mad]

19 minutes ago, gingerjon said:

I still struggle to accept that Bromley are allowed to call themselves a league club.

Earlier this season, I watched a Football League game between Fleetwood Town and Bromley. If anybody, 30 years ago, had suggested that was going to be a thing, I'd have laughed!

[Eddie]

1 hour ago, gingerjon said:

I still struggle to accept that Bromley are allowed to call themselves a league club.

Same with Harrogate.