Dunkirk F.C. vs Ibstock United

This weekend should have seen me visit Ilkeston, where Worksop Town were set to play host to Boston United.  This plan was scuppered shortly after setting off towards Nottingham.  As with so many games this year The Pilgrim's match was postponed due to an unplayable pitch.  This wasn't entirely surprising with overnight temperatures dropping to well below zero.  As such a back up plan was already in place and I continued on towards Nottingham on what proved to be a horrific day for travelling on East Midlands Trains.  Travel problems not withstanding I arrived at Nottingham and met up with a couple of the lads.

The plan was to go and watch a non-league game in the Nottingham area as neutrals.  The game of choice was Dunkirk F.C. vs Ibstock United in the East Midlands Counties League .  In case you aren't aware of these teams I I'll provide a brief summary.  Dunkirk F.C., having been founded in 1946, sat second in the league 15 points from top with seven games in hand at the start of the day.  Ibstock currently lie in midtable having joined the E.M.C.L. from the Leicestershire Senior League in 07/08.  This is the highest level that either team have competed at since their formation.  The reverse fixture in November ended in a 6-2 victory for Dunkirk.  Following last weekends 9-0 victory over Anstey Nomads at the Ron Steel Sports Ground goals and entertainment was eagerly anticipated.

A short bus trip from Nottingham station landed my friends and I in the middle of Lenton Lane Industrial Estate.  After initial confusion, some furious Google Maps action pointed us in the right direction.  Several underpasses later, one of which contained more water than an average sized swimming pool, found us walking down Lenton Lane.  With a football pitch in sight we set off down a side lane, a moment later it became apparent this wasn't the ground we were looking for, further investigation told us we were looking at Pelican Colts F.C.'s ground.  Walking past this gave us our first glance of the Ron Steel stadium rising up from the centre of a surrounding golf course.  A short cut across the 9th hole and through a hedge row found us meters from the clubhouse.

The offending hedgerow short cut.

A few very reasonably priced drinks in a tidy, leather sofa equipped clubhouse accompanied the Winter Olympics on the telly.  Food was on sale although none of us can attest to it's quality.  One distinctive feature of the clubhouse was the strong odour of Deep Heat emanating from the adjoined changing rooms.  Five to three arrived quickly and the turnstiles beckoned. £4 admission and £1 for a good quality, informative programme seemed a bargain.

Two goals first half goals from Lee Day and Darren Garmston, on a heavy pitch, left the home team the happier as the half time whistle blew.  A quick pint in the clubhouse later the second half kicked off.  Banter with the linesman on our side of the pitch provided almost as much entertainment as the match.  Anthony Gregory slotted home to make it 3-0 to Dunkirk and put the game out of Ibstock's reach.  The performance was topped with a well dispatched Ben Middleton penalty leaving the final score at Dunkirk F.C. 4-0 Ibstock United.  Overall the game provided ample entertainment for the 48 spectators, and for £5 what more can you ask?  A quick beer with the players and fans in the clubhouse marked the end of our time at Dunkirk F.C. The return trip to the bus stop proved a much simpler task than getting to the ground and a regular bus service provided a speedy return to Nottingham station.

All in all a good day watching non-league football and great value for money.

It's all been done before...

I was going to write a brilliantly scathing post about the greed of the Premier League. Disregarding my inability to be brilliant there was one major flaw in my plan.  It's been done before.  There seem to be people who's only task in life is to pip me to the post by blogging about football related irritants.  I'm not sure who these people are, sports journalists probably, but that's beside the point.  I neither have the time or inclination to stay up until midnight to complain about the ridiculous 'plan' for a Champions League play off.

All that being said I'm going to blithely carry on regardless of a lack of originality and say, WTF?!  There are some 'advantages' to the play off plan depending on your outlook, more money to the rich clubs and less to the poor being one.  I'm sure Man City or Chelsea will appreciate the extra small change to piss up a wall on an awful player that will warm the bench for a few months before moving out on loan to some tinpot club, Shevchenko to AC Milan for example (yes I know he's now gone to Kiev but that's not the point).  It's not like other clubs will need the money is it?

Another 'advantage' concerns giving the big four a second chance.  At the time this scheme was conceived, there was a chance that Liverpool would finish outside the top four.  This upset has since been scuppered by the inevitable implosion of Spurs, Citeh taking time to gel and the fact that Mr O'Neill seems to have no concept of exhaustion.  The point is that if they had contrived to be average for the entire season, which with Aquilani in the squad wouldn't be a shock, they could finish as low as seventh and still qualify.

These pros clearly outweigh the cons.  Apparently playing one more game doesn't seem to matter, not that it should to teams with massive squads like those of the current top four (Arsenal excluded).  Neither does the devaluation of the FA Cup or Europa League, again not that the big four even take part in those competition, well not their first teams anyway.

I think we're beginning to see just who's plan this is.

This all follows a weekend during which an average of 3.7million people could be bothered to watch the FA Cup and actual game attendances dropped to around half of what they would be for league games.  People are suggesting, rather predictably, that the FA Cup is on it's last legs.  What a surprise.

Surely it would make more sense to dump the Champions League spot for fourth and reallocate it to the FA Cup winners.  They might not last long in the competition but it will be an experience and an income that is usually reserved for the top four.  Would Portsmouth be in the financial trouble they are in now with extra income from a year in the Champions League?  Probably. But it isn't just about those that would qualify through winning the FA Cup.  A European spot for the winners would encourage the bigger teams to take the competition more seriously and that can be no bad thing as smaller clubs would get more money from greater attendances.

All in all it's a stupid idea, that should go without saying.  It's a way for the four big clubs to try and protect their European monetary income from the upstarts like Citeh, Villa and Spurs, whilst giving them added justification for not taking part in competitions that they already avoid. The rich kids get richer and the poor kids get poorer, just as it's always been.  This goes some way to explaining why I care, because ultimately the non-league clubs are the poorest of the poor. We will be the ones that suffer in the end.

Inequality in insolvency...

I posted this on Twitter earlier and received the motivation I needed to finally get round to actually starting a blog.

Right, rant alert: I'm getting so fed up with all the sympathy that Pompey are getting from pundits, all the 'centre of the community' shite, all that 'it's the fans that suffer' guff. It's no different to all the other lower league clubs at the centre of the community that you slate for financial mismanagement and say that they deserve everything they get. Why is it that now one of the 'big' clubs are in trouble things suddenly change, you hypocritical wankers. The amount of money that Pompey lose in a week could sustain a lower league club for a year! How is that better? Why do they deserve more sympathy? So either sort out the problems from grass roots first or STOP CRYING OVER PORTSMOUTH!

 Steve Coppell I'm looking at you.

During the build up to the FA cup matches this afternoon Steve Coppell has been providing us with his words of 'wisdom'. Before a ball was kicked today there was a segment concerning the troubles of the south coast club.  I had great sympathy with Pompey and thier financial troubles initially, after all Boston United haven't exactly escaped the tax mans attentions.  In recent years we've been bent over more times than a certain National Lottery presenter.  As with so many clubs that have been in trouble no-one really cared, bar our fans and a select few guilty of schadenfreude.  We escaped (sort of), thankfully. Some clubs aren't so lucky, Kings Lynn for example.

I understand that us 'tiny' non-league clubs don't get much publicity but what annoys me most is the seeming inequality between the Premier league and everyone else.  There have been several clubs in the league that are in real trouble, Southend had a hearing on the same day as Portsmouth and never got a mention for example. Nowhere is this inequality highlighted more emphatically than on the ITV coverage.

Crystal Palace are playing Aston Villa in the second match of the day. Barely has there been a mention of the financial misfortunes that have befallen Palace. This, remember, on the same programme as Portsmouth (who played yesterday by the way) were discussed at length.

Whilst it's not exactly surprising that an ITV pundit is a driveling idiot it still annoys me, at least it's not Garth Crooks.  Why has the centre of the community guff been rolled out in defence of a team not even playing today?  Why are there discussions over how advancement in the cup will help Pompey pay off their debts? Why is no-one talking about PALACE?!  Surely the survival of Palace is important as that of Portsmouth or any other club in the world?

To sum up you'll notice I said I 'had' sympathy for Portsmouth. That sympathy is quickly evaporating.  I'm beginning to actively dislike Portsmouth F.C. and I don't think I'm the only one.