Yes? Then be sure to check-out the Non-League sections in my football stats & trivia web site. In it you'll find information on... [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The Southern League 1894-95 to 2008-09[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The Northern Premier League 1968-69 to 2008-09[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]The Football Conference 1979-80 to 2008-09[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]Simply click the following link to go to the Football League page of my site:[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif]http://www.myfootballfacts.com/FLeague.html[/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif][/FONT] [FONT=Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]
Thanks! Hopefully anyone with an interest in the histories of the smaller clubs will find it of value.
Thanks...looks an interesting read. PaulC - RedWeb http://www.buystirlingalbion.org.uk http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=198214620098
I'm just in the process of adding as many club badges & crest for the Non-League teams as I can find. A few are proving to be very difficult indeed to track-down. Those which I have for the Football Conference and the Northern Premier League have just been published on my site. Crests for the Southern League is my next project. I've also given Non-League Football its own dedicated section on my football site: http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Non-LeagueFootball.html
It is nice to see a real fan on here. I am a FC HALIFAX TOWN FAN. Have you got all the unibond premier north & south badges ? I have over 200 from the premiership down to the unibond north & south
Thanks for your interest HT. I'm still in the process of updating and re-formatting the non-League section of my website. Your assistance may well prove to be valuable.
Journeymen in Non-League Football? not well paid really BLUE SQUARE PREMIER Saturday August 8: AFC Wimbledon 1 Luton Town 1 (4488), Altrincham 1 Ebbsfleet United 1 (914), Cambridge United 0 Barrow 2 (2990), Forest Green Rovers 1 Kettering Town 2 (1074), Gateshead 0 Histon 3 (681), Grays Athletic P Chester City P, Kidderminster Harriers 1 Hayes & Yeading United 0 (1471), Mansfield Town 4 Crawley Town 0 (3264), Oxford United 2 York City 1 (6403), Rushden & Diamonds 0 Salisbury City 2 (1272), Stevenage Borough 1 Tamworth 1 (2130), Wrexham 3 Eastbourne Borough 0 (3726). JOURNEYMEN FOOTBALLERS FACE PITCH BATTLE By Nick Harris, from The Guardian Jerry Gill is a flexible job-seeker, and in these tough times he needs to be. He's a professional footballer. Forget the Community Shield at Wembley between Manchester United and Chelsea tomorrow. Most footballers outside the Premier League face an employment market that mirrors society at large; fewer jobs, shorter, less-secure contracts and falling pay as supply outstrips demand. The Professional Footballers' Association (PFA), with 4000 members in England, says the number of out-of-contract players has risen from 500 to 600 in a typical summer to around 800 this year. The Scottish PFA, with 700 members, estimates a fifth or more have been on the move, or on their way out of the game. Simon Barker, a senior PFA executive, says: "Clubs have been releasing more players, taking fewer on and decreasing budgets. Below the Premier League, players are being hired on shorter contracts and lower basic pay." The recession could make for an austere 2009-10 season, which starts today for non-Premier League clubs. The collapse of broadcaster Setanta has compounded the problem, especially in England's non-League Conference, and in Scotland's SPL. Setanta was a major paymaster for both. Gill, a 38-year-old defender, has been among those looking for work. Last season he was a player-coach with Forest Green Rovers in the Conference Premier, the fifth tier of English football. Setanta's demise, two years into a five-year contract, will mean a shortfall in the budgets of Conference clubs of between GBP70,000 and GBP200,000 per season. Colin Peake, a Conference board member and a Rovers spokesman, says: "It's not a secret that losing the TV deal hurt our League. "At my own club, we had a first-team squad of 22 last season. That will now have to drop." Gill says that Forest Green's playing budget will fall from around GBP400,000 per year to about GBP300,000. His own departure was one consequence of the fall in revenue. They couldn't offer me a package to stay," he says. "The manager said it was purely a financial decision." Gill's CV includes a five-year spell at Birmingham City which ended with promotion to the Premier League in 2002. "Incomparable," he says of the spectrum of football lifestyles. "At Birmingham we saw masseurs on a daily basis, had the best lunches laid on, stayed at good hotels. On the way to my first Forest Green away match last season, we were on the bus to Crawley and, at about 4pm, I asked our manager Jim Harvey what we had planned for dinner. He just laughed and said, 'Look around'. The lads were eating sandwiches and crisps: that was the pre-match meal. "We didn't really do overnight stays, except once in Barrow, and it was a bit Fawlty Towers. And the wages are just not comparable. At the top, if you're sensible, you should be set for life when you stop. At the lower end, you need to have a job when you stop playing." Footballers' pay is notoriously hard to pin down, though a survey of PFA members in 2006 gave the most recent reliable indication. The average basic pay of Premier League players was GBP676,000 per year (GBP13,000 a week), while those at Championship clubs earned GBP195,750 (GBP3,764 a week), and those in Leagues One and Two earned GBP67,850 (GBP1,305) and GBP49,600 (GBP954) respectively. Top-level pay has continued to grow, exponentially. Elsewhere, anecdotal evidence suggests it might have fallen. Some basic salaries in the lower Leagues are as low as a few thousand pounds a year, with performance-related additions. In Scotland, wages are highest at Celtic and Rangers but fall off rapidly, typically to between GBP20,000 and GBP30,000 a year, for full-time staff in the First Division. That figure is not dissimilar to what full-time players at Conference clubs in England earn, although pay packets vary widely from club to club. Gill is among the majority who need to keep earning well beyond their playing days, and he has planned ahead. He hopes to play for a non-league club this season but has taken his coaching badges and last week reached the final two in a 110-candidate race to become the new manager of Cambridge United, before missing out. Management remains his aim. Gill has also been coaching youngsters as part of Birmingham City's football in the community scheme, and has a fledgling business selling sports kit by an Italian firm, Errea, in the Cheltenham and Gloucester areas. "I've been lucky in my career but you also make your own luck," he says. "I also believe if you put the work in, behave the right way, it'll come back to you. But this recession is a reality check for a lot of people. All I know is I need to work, to support my wife and two sons." The PFA provides help and financial support for hundreds of its members each year to prepare them for life after playing. "We try to encourage everyone while still playing to take appropriate qualifications to ease them into a life after football," says Pat Lally, the PFA's director of education. "Outside the Premier League, the lads need to work after football, and that's truer than ever when times are this tough." Lally says the recession is harming lower-League players in particular. In the 2007-08 season, the PFA gave out 900 retraining or educational grants, a figure that jumped to 1200 in 2008-09 and which continues to rise. The PFA pays GBP1500 towards any vocational course a member takes, and GBP1000 a year towards degree courses. The union also helps fund and run a popular course in sports journalism for former players, in Staffordshire, and a BSE in physiotherapy, available in Salford and York, among others. Lally cites the case of Colin Murdock, a one-time Manchester United trainee recently released by League Two Accrington, who is being helped to study law, and the recent cases of Tony Bird, whose clubs included Swansea and Cardiff, and Gavin Peacock, once of Newcastle and Chelsea. Bird was funded to do a dog-grooming course and now runs a business in that field, while Peacock received funds to help towards his master's in divinity. "Think of an occupation and we've probably helped a player train for it," says Lally. "Everything from construction and engineering to law, medical studies and pathology." Football's fickle nature is reflected in the situation of Sean Hessey, 30, who is starting the final year of a two-year deal with Macclesfield Town in League Two. As a boy he was in the same Liverpool youth team as England's Steven Gerrard and Michael Owen. As a man, he has no complaints about a 14-year professional career that has given him "a good living from the game" at the likes of Huddersfield, Kilmarnock, Blackpool and Chester. But in the first week of pre-season training last month he suffered an injury to his medial ligament in his left leg and will be unable to play for three months at least. His contract is secure, until next summer at least, but his situation has led him to think ahead. He says: "I think every day, 'What can I do when I stop playing?' I've never been out of work but I know guys with mortgages and families and it's tough." Fraser Wishart, chief executive of PFA Scotland, says: "It's ironic, at a time when there's never been so much money in football, at least in the Premier League and the Champions League, that never have we had so many clubs in financial difficulties." Barrow AFC unofficial home page: www.barrowafc.net
Re: Journeymen in Non-League Football? not well paid really 2583 - I wonder if that's the best weekend average for this level.
I've got a blog about following non-league side Bath City FC. It is at http://nedvedsnotes.blogspot.com/ I am an American living in England so I try to make it accessable for American readers and I also write a lot of entries on the differences between British and American sports.
The pig is a symbol of Bath. The legendary founder of Bath, King Bladud, found the healing waters of Bath when his pigs were wallowing in a spring. Thanks for visiting the blog!
Cool. Interesting. I was wondering because nickname of the fans of the crosstown rival of my beloved Sheffield Wednesday F.C. (UP YOU MIGHTY OWLS!) is the "pigs".
And I spend my life looking for non-league footballers interested in giving Australian club football a go www.ozsoccerexperience.com