Non-League Football Day Approaches.

Northampton ON Chenecks Ground - My most local non-league ground.

Fast approaching is another part of the season that I and many others cannot stand, the uninspiring international break. For me, one of the worst parts of the football calendar. However, the March internationals fall in-line with a day that should be spoken about more, a day that I have little knowledge about and one that offers a new experience for many fans up and down the country.

That day is National Non-league day, and it is happening on Saturday 26^th of March this year. I personally have little experience of non-league football as growing up I was always a Manchester United fan, that privilege was passed on to me by my dad, I have always also followed my home-town club, Northampton Town. Northampton and Manchester United, both still in the football league and have been for an existence, Northampton doing so have played every season since 1966 in either the third or fourth division. Both the teams I have followed have never taken part in this celebratory day, nor to my knowledge have they promoted it, consequently I have always missed this tradition and now looking from the outside in, it feels a great shame and something that I would love to be a part of.

The day its-self is an annual event that aims to highlight, inspire, and celebrate semi-professional and grassroots football within and around the UK, the aim is to get as many people as possible to local non-league grounds to educate them on a part of the game that they have been missing out on for many years, in doing so building the clubs profile and helping them to engage with a wider range of audience within the community. In my opinion the profile of the non-league game has dramatically increased over the last few years, there seems to be more coverage of the games and I feel aspects such as social media has played a huge part of this coverage.

On Twitter for example I have witnessed many different pages popping up that cover non-league, it’s not only the games that are covered on social media however, but there are also many pages I have observed that are dedicated to the all sorts of aspects of non-league football including the volunteers that help clubs, the offers of food provided by clubs, the programmes produced for games, the grounds, the badges and the benches and the crowds in attendance. Very recently I have been reading more on non-league football and I have learnt that this great game is still here due to the increasing number of volunteers that help each and every club up and down the country. Following some research of watching of online videos and listening to podcasts its clear that the people within these clubs care a great deal about the football and the clubs they serve, they are a credit to football itself as they are supplying a base to the footballing pyramid that offers players of all standards an entry level in to football.

Brackley Town Football Club's ground is also situated local to me.

I recently listened to the FA and England’s football podcast, ‘In the Box.’ In the episode the two hosts Tom Lee and Charlotte Richardson were joined by Tony Incenzo at Harborough Town Football Club. Tony, who works for Talk Sport and is a Sky TV reporter, is a huge non-league fan has been to over two thousand non-league grounds, his love of non-league football began at Hendon Football Club at the age of just 10 and still today gets to around 60 or 70 games per season. During the ‘In the Box’ episode, Tony Incenzo referred to the Covid pandemic that we have all been through over the last three years, during this time many people lost their businesses and many people suffered financially. Within non-league football, all fixtures had been stopped during this time, meaning there was no money coming thorough the gates of every club, they were losing money that would have been made in the clubhouses also. All money the clubs would make had been stopped, however during this time non-league football did not lose one club as a direct impact of the pandemic, this is a remarkable achievement and a huge credit to those volunteers that give their time, effort, and money to support their local clubs and helped them come out the other side. During the same episode, Lawrence Jones, who is the head of National League system and Chief Executive of Harborough Town, told the host’s the non-league system pyramid is a golden nugget of football in this country, players and teams have the ability to use non-league as a starting point to step up to the professional game and pro footballers use it as a level to step down.

I am guilty of not knowing as much of non-league football as I should, it is clearly a great part of the game we all love and it that helps to build a more community feel amongst fans and clubs alike while it brings people together and the evidence is there to see, when you understand that we didn’t lose one team to the pandemic, that’s solely down to the volunteers that assisted them. The clubs are seeing higher attendances through the pyramid, and it is amazing to find out that on average 66,000 people go to watch non-league football around Christmas time. That is a colossal number of people and a definite positive for the game. With national non-league day coming up I hope that the attendances are once again increased and many people who have not yet tasted non-league football, myself included will jump in and try it. As an alternative to Premier league and the football league you could get yourself a match ticket, a programme, and some food a drink and most of the time you will still have change out of £20, whereas in the football league you will be looking at a match ticket only for £40 plus. With non-league it is a vastly unique experience, you can turn up moments before kick-off if you want and often meet players and staff after the game, there is a more relaxed and welcoming feel to it. All this and you are saving yourself some money while still enjoying the beautiful game, I cannot wait to get involved.

As I have next to no experience with non-league, I will make sure I play my part and will be at a game come 3pm on the 26^th of March. Non-league football is simply football and I love all football so I’m sure it will an enjoyable day for myself, I will have my son with my and hopefully he will enjoy it too and want to return, there are many local non-league teams around the country and going to a game on the 26^th of March could give you that feeling of being a part of a new team, something new to support or something new to be a part of. I look forward to getting involved, I hope you can be a part of this to.