Fables of the Reconstruction

On Tuesday 23^rd February, I finished work a bit early, raced home for a quick coffee and  sandwich, then headed out the door by 5.20. I caught a Metro for 12 stops, changed, caught another for a further 14 stops, alighted, waited around for a bit, then caught a bus, arriving at Ryhope CA’s lovely Meadow Park at about 7.10 where, with around 50 others, I watched a blinding game of football, which ended with my team Newcastle Benfield grabbing a deserved equaliser deep into injury time to secure a 2-2 draw. As soon as Josh Scott rescued a point, the three RCA supporters near us in the stand all agreed it was well deserved and meant it was a fair result. No horses got punched, no CS gas was discharged and there wasn’t even a pub smashed up in the local environs. We shook hands, wished each other all the best and moved on to the next game.

Thankfully, I managed a lift home and was back in front of my fireside by 10.00. The only thing better than the ground and the game, was the wonderful hospitality afforded to us by the home club’s committee. The steaming mugs of coffee and homemade plate pie at half time were gratefully received on a night when falling temperatures nipped your feet, even with 2 pairs of socks on.

Let’s be crystal clear about this; such a pleasant evening is par for the course in the glorious jewel of local football that is the Northern League. From Alnwick to Northallerton, across to Penrith and all points in between, 44 amateur clubs, almost exclusively run by unpaid volunteers, not to mention a devoted management committee overseeing things, run the grassroots game in our area like clockwork. Who needs the Champions’ League when there’s the Northern League to luxuriate in? More pertinently, who needs a new Step 4 Midland League and the concomitant shuffling of boundaries that would result in the expansion of the Evostik League, at the expense of a contracted Northern League? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Whichever way you look at it (and here’s wishing Morpeth Town all the best in their quarter final against Bristol Manor Farm on Saturday), the Northern League has been fantastically successful at a national cup level; the FA Vase has almost become the league’s property, courtesy of Whitley Bay’s hat trick of triumphs and subsequent wins by Dunston UTS, Spennymoor Town and North Shields, not to mention West Auckland’s brave defeat at Wembley. Presumably, such repeated success has put the noses of the brass hats at certain other leagues at our level slightly out of joint, causing them to pass comment on the perceived lack of progression up the pyramid of Northern League clubs. Almost exclusively for reasons of geographical isolation and the future costs involved in travelling expenses and ground improvements, relatively few ex-Northern League sides have successfully made their way up through the national league structure. Obviously Blyth Spartans and Darlington are battling it out to get up into the Conference North, while Spennymoor and Whitby are doing well a division below.

Others have not fared so encouragingly; Whitley Bay were glad to return to the fold after a grim final few years at a higher level, Bishop Auckland and Durham City (the latter having all funding pulled when the FA ruled their 4G surface at New Ferens Park unsuitable for cup competitions) plummeted back whence they came and Blue Star ceased to exist, as did Spennymoor and North Shields in their original incarnations. Not a great track record and probably a reason why many clubs fear to tread where others have rushed in.

Of course such logic and reasoned thought butters no parsnips with the great and the good of our national game. Greg Dyke no less has contemplated long and hard just how the bottom steps of the pyramid should operate. Consequently, as part of the committee at Benfield, I found myself invited to a meeting with representatives of the FA, who wished to run a “consciousness raising” session at the palatial Ramside Hall on Sunday 21^st February, which I attended with our secretary Gary Thompson. At this point I need to state I am speaking entirely personally and that my views do not represent the official position of Newcastle Benfield FC or The Northern League.  Basically the afternoon was a monumental waste of time, leaving most of us none the wiser as to the likelihood and scope of any potential structural changes that will be in place for the 2017/2018 season.

The session began, after coffee and expenses forms natch, with a series of slides that showed what the FA hand in mind. Basically there was widespread, indeed almost universal, recognition that 22 team divisions at Step 5 (Northern League Division 1) and Step 6 (Northern League Division 2) were too big; the proposal that seemed to be accepted without dissent was that 20 division leagues are the way forward. As almost every club loses money hand over fist with every game we play, two less away trips and two less sets of referee’s fees has got to be a bonus. Also, with the winter we’ve just had, or may still be having, a less crowded league programme, considering all Northern League clubs play in a minimum of 4, and possibly 6, cup competitions, would relieve some of the pressure to get games played. Hopefully this would rule out the end of season farce of teams playing 3 times a week. Obviously this would still result in 10% of the league leaving, which is where things should have got potentially interesting, but actually became ridiculously vague.

At present, Northern League teams have to register an interest in promotion by December 31^st previously. Any club can express interest, as Bishop Auckland always do, but unless they finish top 3, as Bishop Auckland never do, they can’t be promoted. Consequently, the Northern League either maintains its strength or stagnates, according to your viewpoint. The suggestion being clubs don’t strive to improve facilities or squads, happy to be large fish in a small pool. Balderbash; most clubs accept that fiscal prudence dictates upward promotion would be suicidal in most instances.

Now personally speaking, if I find it a push to get to Ryhope on a Tuesday evening after graft, so I’m not likely to be able to make it as far as Droylesden, Glossop North End or Heanor Town midweek, for instance. I wonder whether players would fancy such midweek travel, especially those with bairns and jobs to think about.  However, the FA’s contention was this new Midlands Step 4 league would push the boundary of the Evostik League further north, with some mention of East and West divisions, meaning it would be straight up and down the A1 rather than across country for most longer journeys.

I appreciate that the FA couldn’t be precise about the geographical boundary for the potential Step 4 division that NL clubs, who would of course now play in the Trophy and not the Vase, would feed into, but it was the nub of all inquiries from clubs. In a sense, it was like being at the annual conference of the Democratic Unionist Party, listening to the Taoiseach and Tánaiste expounding the benefits of a 32 county United Ireland, such was the vehemence of the nay-saying from most clubs. Until this sticking point is unequivocally addressed, I can’t see any Northern League clubs, save Bishop Auckland, who have the ground grading, and possibly South Shields, who have the money to put everything in place, wanting to take a leap into the unknown. As for the rest; well, North Shields may have the support, but they don’t have the ground and Whitley Bay have the ground, but no longer the support.

Obviously, all of us there gathered on Sunday are loyal to our clubs, but the vast majority of us are loyal to the Northern League as well and so we sought the opinions of the League Management Committee. Clearly they had no objections to clubs voluntarily taking promotion, but the spectre of enforced promotion was a something they, rightly, found abhorrent. Forced promotion, quite probably involving blind eye ground inspections, will significantly weaken and ultimately destabilise the Northern League. To me, it is no coincidence that the FA has waited until league chairman Mike Amos has decided to retire before starting this process.

With discontent becoming more audible, the meeting degenerated into a farce, with a geriatric blue blazer delivering a near 30 minute, semi-inaudible monologue which was utterly irrelevant to the scope of our meeting. At this point, it seemed to me that these droning old buffers at the top table are more concerned with maintaining their own little empires and ensuring they get corporate freebies for the Cup final and England internationals than the dear old Northern League. It wasn’t about football; it was about power and making allegiances and truces with various regions. The Northern League is a geographically extreme irritant that needs, or so it appears, taking down a peg. Pressganging half a dozen of our best clubs, and Bishop Auckland, is one way of doing this.

Frankly all I’m interested in is watching my team Newcastle Benfield play games against clubs I can recognise and feel a degree of empathy with. Nothing against Spartans, but did they really have any strong opinion about Rushall Olympic before they went there the other week? I don’t even know where Rushall is. No, give me the home for tea on Saturday and home for News at Ten midweek league every time. As Andy and Michael Hudson said five years ago; Viva Northern League.