The Non-League Paper

 

Waiting for ‘The Pink’, the Coventry Evening Telegraph football paper, on a Saturday evening remains one of my most vivid childhood memories, the van arriving around 6pm and eager hands passing over their money before rushing off to digest the afternoon’s reports.

It was a tradition I continued after moving to Sheffield but the battle for survival facing the ‘Green Un’ and others became more evident as the years passed, a number of price rises in quick succession and later delivery (if at all) on a Saturday evening as production moved away from the city centre.

Of course, all of the information is available at the touch of a button nowadays but I still don’t think the format of seeing all of the scores, scorers, attendances and tables, on one page has ever been bettered.

That has always been one of my favourite features of The Non-League Paper over the years, the disparate strands of the pyramid in England pulled together on the page in addition to the promise of the fixtures for the week ahead from the Northern League down to the South-West Peninsula.

Those simple pleasures are currently denied us, with only the National League season still being played, but the paper remains a focal point for the game at all levels outside of the EFL as the debate over what becomes of the 2020/21 campaign begins to intensify.

The Ferriby Phoenix Rises

Despite the unprecedented challenges faced by the club in 2020, North Ferriby FC chairman Les Hare was able to issue an upbeat New Year message recently in which he said he thanked the ‘wonderful community, loyal sponsors and fanatical supporters’ for getting the club into a position where it is well placed to manage its way through the current crisis.

The re-birth of The Villagers, after the demise of North Ferriby United in 2019, definitely ticks the box in my search for good news stories and it was clear to see when they visited Hallam FC last March (the final game I saw before the initial suspension of football) that something positive was in the air over in the East Riding with a healthy travelling support making the journey on a Tuesday evening.

Attendances, when allowed, this season have also been excellent and I enjoyed the recent copy of the independent fanzine View from the Allotment End that came through the post, a good old-fashioned ‘zine mix of views on the team, wider football articles, beer, music and some scurrilous local gossip that is impenetrable to the outsider but very enjoyable nonetheless.

The latest @VFTAE has been a good read over the weekend. A classic fanzine mix of football, music, beer and local gossip and helping @FareShareHull too. pic.twitter.com/zkyobKbvcA

— Affordable Football (@AffordableFooty) January 18, 2021

Downton FC

As more and more leagues around the UK face up to the prospect that the 2020/21 season may not re-start, I thought I would focus on some brighter stories over the next few weeks. 

Downton FC of the Wessex League are making plans for a better future with their community clubhouse project and generous support to date, with £5,500 raised, has enabled work to begin.

Further donations are needed to allow for a Sport England grant to be unlocked with more information available on the club's Crowdfunder page.

Update on the Clubhouse fundraiser - #looksamazing pic.twitter.com/MSAYdq11RC

— Downton FC (@DowntonFC) January 9, 2021

Still Up For The Cup

The FA Cup Third Round, so the narrative goes, has lost some of its sheen in recent years, tacked as it has been onto the end of the increasingly busy festive period and with so many of the matches involving those teams in the bottom half of the Premier League or the upper reaches of the Championship having the air of unwanted additions to the campaign.

Attendance figures are often highlighted as an indicator of reduced interest in the competition, unfairly in many ways but not a problem this coming weekend as the cup will be played behind firmly closed doors.

For Marine and many others that is, of course, a real shame, but one positive spin-off is the number of games that are being made available on a free-to-air basis.

Across BBC platforms there are eight live ties being shown and, in addition to those matches not being shown on the Beeb or BT Sport, a further eight can also be viewed on the FA Player, registration for which is free.

Marine have had a huge response to their ‘virtual’ tickets for the Spurs tie while Chorley are running something similar for the visit of Derby County (a game that looks set to go ahead despite the Rams first-team having to miss out due to a coronavirus outbreak) and supporters of both Newport County and Cheltenham Town are raising funds for their respective clubs in lieu of missed matchday revenue.