Fiver Football at Hartlepool United

Hartlepool United were under no illusions about how tough life in the National League was going to be after their dramatic relegation from League Two last season and August provided confirmation of that, defeats against Dover Athletic, Maidenhead United, AFC Fylde and Bromley making it a baptism of fire for new manager Craig Harrison after he made the step up from The New Saints.

Loyal supporters made long trips to Maidenhead and Bromley but the shorter journey to Guiseley on Bank Holiday Monday finally delivered some cheer with a hard-fought first victory of the campaign.

Maidstone United are the visitors to Victoria Park this coming Saturday and, to thanks fans after a 'frustrating month', the club have reduced prices to £5 Adults and £1 for Under-16's, prices which apply to travelling supporters as well.

Keep an eye out for your local club this weekend to see if they are doing any offers for the international break.

Premier League and EFL season ticket holders who head to Chorley on Saturday for the National League North game against York City can watch for the concessionary price of £9 while Bath City are offering £8 admission to Bristol City and Bristol Rovers season ticket holders as they take on Welling United.

International Break Action

Non-League Day 2017 does not take place until the next international break but keep an eye out for your local team this coming weekend as there may be some special offers in place for season ticket holders of League clubs or reduced admission generally.

It is also the FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round, kicking off on Friday night with Footy for a Fiver as City of Liverpool FC take on Nantwich Town FC.

The previous evening, Thursday 31 August, sees England Under 20's meet the Netherlands at AFC Telford United. Tickets are priced at £3 and £1.50 for the 7pm kick-off.

England Under 21's take on Latvia in their first home qualifier for the 2019 Euros on Tuesday 5 September, the game taking place at the home of AFC Bournemouth and with the Three Lions squad containing a number of the successful Under 20 World Cup winners from the summer.

Tickets are priced at £10 and £5 with a Family (2 Adults + 2 Children) ticket available for £20. 

Scotland are in the same group and take on Holland at the Paisley 2021 Stadium, also on 5 September, kick-off 7.30pm. Tickets are priced at £5 Adults and £2 Concessions.

On the same evening England Under 19's meet Germany at the home of Mansfield Town. Tickets for the 7.45pm kick-off are priced at £3 and £1.50.

Peterborough Northern Star FC

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— Pboro Northern Star (@PNSFC_official) 22 August 2017

Free Football at Pride Park and Elland Road This Weekend

Two good opportunities to take the family to a big stadium and watch some competitive football free of charge this Bank Holiday weekend.

On Friday evening Derby County Under 23’s meet Sunderland in Premier League 2 for a 7pm kick-off at Pride Park.

Admission is free and tickets are not required in advance for the first of nine scheduled Under 23 games to be played at the stadium in 2017/18 in both Premier League 2 and the Premier League International Cup.

Meanwhile, Leeds United Ladies will be running out at Elland Road on Sunday afternoon at 2pm for their Women's Premier League Division One North game against Chester-Le-Street.

This marks the beginning of a link up between Leeds Ladies and LUFC which has seen the Women's team take on the United name.

Admission is free on Sunday, fans can pick up a ticket at the West Stand Paddock, entrance four, which will get them into the ground.

Hitchin Town FC

Very much regulars on Affordable Football and our Twitter page, Hitchin Town FC continue to look for ways in which to make watching a match at Top Field as light on the pocket as possible.

What I like more than anything about the Canaries is the regular communication with supporters, manager Mark Burke and secretary Roy Izzard writing weekly columns for the club website.

And Roy's notes for this week make for interesting reading as he talks about attendances and the constant battle to improve them, a battle Hitchin seem to be winning with Monday night football, Theme Days and, of course, Pay What You Want which has become a staple part of any season at Top Field.

Each Pay What You Want fixture that the club have held has produced more than the budgeted admission on the gate although they are wary about overdoing it and keeping it for special occasions.

One such is Non-League Day 2017 and Hitchin's home fixture with Stratford will be Pay What You Want, as is their trip to Biggleswade United this Tuesday (August 22) for the 'Top Field Trophy' which has become an annual event between the two clubs.

Hallam FC v Atherton Collieries

Atherton Collieries supporters at Sandygate this afternoon and watching their team eventually come away 4-1 winners at Hallam FC in the Preliminary Round of the FA Cup.
 
Two divisions separated the two teams but it was only in the final quarter of the game that Colls managed to ease past their hosts on a pleasant Sunday afternoon when the Oldest Ground in the World looked in sparkling condition.
 
£5 Adult admission, a smart clubhouse and a cracking tea hut make Hallam FC well worth a visit if you are ever in Sheffield.

Selby Town are the visitors this coming Tuesday evening for a Northern Counties East League Division One fixture which kicks off at 7.45pm.

For Atherton it means a £1,925 bonus from the prize fund and a place in this week's draw for the First Round Qualifying on Saturday 2 September.

FA Women's Premier League

The new FA Women’s Premier League season starts this weekend as clubs in the Northern and Southern divisions of the second tier of the Women’s game in the UK take the first step on what they hope will be a successful campaign.

 

Traditionally played following the footballing calendar we are all used to, WPL will of course be joined by the Women’s Super League from this year as that competition moves to a September-May schedule.

 

Sheffield FC, Brighton & Hove Albion and Tottenham Hotspur have gained promotion to the WSL in recent seasons and a number of ambitious clubs will have plans to break into those ranks in 2018, the winner of a play-off between the Northern and Southern champions determining that.

 

Pleasingly, Gillingham Ladies will be running out at Priestfield this season and admission for this Sunday’s opener against West Ham, kick-off 2pm, is free to enter although a donation of £2 to official charity partner, Take Heart Mercy Mission, will be very welcome.

 

There is free entry to C&K Basildon Ladies home game against Chichester City at the home of Canvey Island FC, kick-off also 2pm on Sunday.

FA Cup Preliminary Round

Mid-August and already a second (or third if they had a replay in the Extra Preliminary Round) FA Cup tie for many teams with games taking place up and down the country this coming weekend.

Tie of the round, on purely personal criteria is Hallam FC against Atherton Collieries, not just because Sandygate is within walking distance from my house in Sheffield.

Atherton is also a place I know well through family but, much more than that, both clubs are very active on Twitter in their attempts to engage and increase their respective fan bases.

Hallam ply their trade in the Northern Counties East League Division One at present so will start as underdogs against a Colls team who were promoted to Step 4 of the Pyramid last season (two levels above their hosts) but they belied that status against Bootle in the last round and have the famous Sandygate slope on their side!

 

 

Usual admission prices of £5 Adults and £2.50 Concessions apply for this one but keep in mind that this tie is being played on Sunday at 3pm as cricket takes precedence at the ground in the summer.

That does give an opportunity to take in another game on Saturday afternoon.

Options in the local area include Sheffield FC against Ossett Town and Penistone Church at home to Litherland REMYCA who defeated fellow Merseysiders City of Liverpool FC in the opening round.

That tie was streamed live on the BBC, part of an admirable intention to televise at least one match from each stage of the competition during the season with South Shields against Bridlington the chosen game fro the Preliminary Round.

Marine FC

Formed in 1894, Marine FC still proudly ply their trade at Rossett Park (now known as the Marine Travel Arena) having played at the ground since 1903.

Part of a thriving Non-League scene in the Liverpool area, with the arrival of both AFC Liverpool and City of Liverpool FC in recent years, Marine are gearing up for another season in the Premier Division of the Northern Premier League although the campaign got off to the worst possible start with a 5-0 defeat at Grantham Town on Saturday.

Still, onwards and upwards and this week sees two home fixtures as Workington AFC are the visitors on Tuesday evening before Barwell come to Crosby on Saturday afternoon.

Under 11's go free with a paying adult but, in a nice twist for the Barwell fixture admission will be £5 for adults accompanied by an Under 11.

£5 entry is also available at all home league matches to Everton and Liverpool season ticket holders.

Greenwich Borough FC

Pay What You Like this Saturday at Greenwich Borough FC!!https://t.co/yDmLGtkc1h

— Greenwich Borough FC (@GBoroughfc) 9 August 2017

New Season, New Start for Women's Super League

The FA Women’s Super League (WSL) kicks off its new season in September, the era of ‘summer football’ having ended and a winter schedule introduced for the 2017/18 season.

Helping the national team and those clubs in the Champions League are the headline reasons for the change, aligning competition in England with that on the continent but on an everyday level it is also hoped that a more regular schedule of matches throughout the season will lead to the hard-won increase in interest and attendance being entrenched still further.

WSL clubs have always worked hard to ensure that their matches are affordable to watch and provide a family-friendly environment in which to do so and hopefully inspire the next generation of girls to take up the game.

But the 2016 season was a disjointed affair with a ‘feast or famine’ schedule which sometimes saw teams play two home matches in quick succession before a long gap until their next one, hampering efforts to build a fan base and make use of social media to generate interest and excitement in the build-up to games.

The initial move to playing in the summer was made with the best of intentions, a chance to promote the fledgling WSL in the absence of the relentless frenzy surrounding the Premier League, not that that ever experiences much of an off-season lull.

However it brought with it problems of its own, ranging from the logistical with unavailability of grounds as repair work was taken place on pitches to the physical as the top clubs found themselves out of synch with their continental rivals as the Champions League reached its final stages.

The transitional Spring Series having done its job, attention now turns to the first September to May season after a summer in which the European Championships has enjoyed plenty of terrestrial television coverage on Channel 4.

England’s semi-final exit may have been something of a disappointment to those in the game, coming as it did with the team being the highest-ranked left in the competition at the final four stage, but their performances will have created enough of a positive vibe to take into a WSL season where a number of the other star players from Euro 2017 will also be plying their trade.

And, although the likes of Yeovil Town Ladies will battle it out in WSL 1, the competition as a whole is taking on more of a similarity to the Premier League as Brighton & Hove Albion and Tottenham Hotspur take their place in WSL 2 (Brighton having also competed in the Spring Series) following promotion from the FA Women’s Premier League.

There may be a few more years of flux until a relatively settled group of teams make up the top ten in the country, the demise of 2015 FA Cup finalists Notts County just days before the start of the Spring Series showing that the financial model of the professional game doesn’t always add up in the absence of strong backing from a parent club.

Fixtures run from later September through to mid-May, with a Winter Break over Christmas, which should ensure an exciting end to the season with the FA Cup Final at Wembley followed by the final round of league matches.

The Wembley showpiece has been a huge success in the past two seasons, nearly 40,000 watching Manchester City defeat Birmingham City earlier this year, and tickets are already on sale for the 2018 Final priced at £15 for adults, £5 for concessions and free for children with discounts for groups of ten or more people.

And those clubs who have already released their season ticket prices are looking to be more than competitive on their offering to supporters, watching BristolCity, for example, in WSL 1 will cost an adult £42 for the whole campaign of nine home matches.

Affordable Football On Twitter

Follow Affordable Football on Twitter for daily updates on matches that may be of interest...

16's and under go free at @suttonunited v Macclesfield on Tuesday 15 August. https://t.co/frzyqrt23K

— Affordable Football (@AffordableFooty) 7 August 2017

Trafford FC

The bar was open and the sun was shining at Shawe View on Saturday afternoon as Trafford FC hosted Altrincham in the final pre-season friendly of the summer for both clubs.

Admission was £5 for Adults today as the hosts gained a 1-0 victory and admission for league matches in 2017/18 is unchanged from last season at £8 Adults, £5 OAP's and £2 Concessions.

The Evo-Stik Northern Premier League Division One North campaign begins next Saturday with a home game against South Shields.

Watch Eight Manchester United Matches For Free

And more to come across the 2017/18 season as the Reds will be playing the majority of their Premier League 2, Premier League International Cup (both Under 23s) and UEFA Youth League (Under 19s) at Leigh Sports Village.

The action starts with the visit of Swansea City on Monday 21 August for a 7pm start in Premier League 2 with free admission via registration through the LSV website. 

In line with the rules of Premier League 2, United will also play at least three games at Old Trafford.

This requirement, for all participating clubs, means there are matches scheduled in August at the Etihad Stadium (Friday 11th), St Mary's (Monday 14th), Goodison Park, the Hawthorns (both Friday 18th)and the Emirates Stadium (Monday 21st) among others and most of these should not cost more than a fiver for adults to attend.

A full list of fixtures is available here but please double check before you go as Under 23 games can be switched at short notice.

Tividale to Wembley

The title comes from a book I read and re-read when I was younger, Brian James 'Journey To Wembley', an odyssey through the rounds of the FA Cup in the 1976/77 season.

He chose Tividale as his starting point with the Black Country club being located in the middle of the country and, as he admitted, because he hadn’t heard of them before.

The warmth with which he was received at The Beeches makes for an excellent start to the book. James travels on the team coach with the players and learns a lot about them as they progress towards a tie against a Telford side managed by Geoff Hurst, an old friend of the author.

From there the journey moves on to Matlock Town, Carlisle United and Liverpool, the eventual finalists in the competition where they were beaten by Manchester United at Wembley.

Encountering the Anfield men early in the competition was a situation the author wanted to avoid but the contrast with 40 years on is that he had almost as easy access to the Liverpool team and management as he had at Tividale.

Anyway, it’s pleasing to see that Tividale still play at The Beeches ground and that is where the road to Wembley begins this Saturday with an FA Cup Extra Preliminary Round tie against Highgate United.

Admission is priced at £5 Adults, £3 Concessions and free for Under 16’s with a paying adult.

The tie is one of 185 taking place across the weekend with a full list on the FA Website.