Conference trucks::football;1

    jeff,
    
    Have you read topic 157 ?  If you haven't, you might be interested in
    its contents - don't be misled by the title; religion and politics,
    thankfully, were eased out of the discussion.  As a contributor to that
    discussion, I had considered suggesting that it be renamed/moved to...
    something like 'The Future of Football' !!  So, well done that man !
    
    Anyway, to respond to your topic, the future of the game depends on
    money.  Money is generated by support, whether it be commercial or at
    the turnstiles.  To increase turnstile support, I believe, relies
    heavily on making the game family entertainment - but in order to
    achieve that requires increased facilities, which means money.  It's a
    vicious circle, and one which the Aldershots of this world will never
    break.  It has to be faced - clubs will go out of business; but one
    man's poison is another man's meat (sic).  As one door closes, another
    opens.  Clubs like Wycombe, Altringham et al deserve a crack.  Maybe
    part of the answer lies in reducing the number of teams in the Football
    League.....?
    PFC
    

    
    I have always been a supporter of this 'super league', but recently
    have had second thoughts.
    
    Everyone admits that this Jones of Liverpool is a good player, and
    he seems set to have a glittering career. Liverpool picked him up for
    a song from a 3rd or 4rth division club (I believe). If these clubs are 
    forced into liquidation, or semi-professional status, will these little 
    gems still turn up, do you think ?
    
    Regards,
    Wayne.

From "The Observer", Sunday 1st October 1995...
    
    "    		Fickle fervour of fans 
    			======================

    It was late and a Scottish friend, fuelled by the hour and the
    barley, reached for his copy of Scotland's 1978 World Cup theme
    song. This was not going to be a pretty sight. Already reddened eyes
    were rendered virtually scarlet as shaky fingers dropped the needle
    in the groove and he began to blub. 'I love my country!" he wailed
    to a backdrop of unrelenting tunelessness ... 'but what I'm doing
    living in Fulham I don't know.'

    It would be facetious to doubt his ardour. After all, Wee Scotty, as
    we call him, has for more than 40 years sustained a love of Partick
    Thistle, sharing doomed spiritual ground with the Big Yin, and will
    happily repeat the comic's old quip that for most of his adult life
    he thought the name of the club was Partick Thistle Nil.

    But, like Billy Connolly, he moved away (even if Fulham is a
    comfortably easier commute to Firhill Park than is Hollywood), a
    member of the Exiled Obsessives, sad souls condemned to trawl the
    agate in sports pages of hostile, foreign organs for the merest
    mention of their heroes. Stirring stuff, eh?

    Except that, as a survey by the Premier League last week
    illustrated, loyalty is an increasingly portable commodity,
    transferred on a whim to a bigger stage, home towns forgotten and
    floundering. It is impossible to sustain the argument, as
    traditionalists tried to when Rupert Murdoch plundered the hearts
    and bank accounts of rugby league, that things are as they were.
    Merger most foul was the theme, since resisted, but surely it's only
    a temporary reprieve.

    As we had suspected, the progressive dilution of genuine fealty is
    upon us. The unpalatable reality is that small clubs that do not
    carry the cachet of style, money, power and results deemed essential
    in a superficial world are dying and the giants stride on, bulging
    with money and cups and supported by an invisible army of thousands
    whose only connection with Liverpool, say, is achieved through a
    subscription to Sky.

    It was not enough to make you drop your bacon sandwich, as they say
    in "Loaded", to learn that 49 per cent of Liverpool's supporters
    live more than 50 miles from Anfield (for crying out loud, people do
    have cars) - but it would have been more illuminating to the
    discussion if the distance had been put at 300 miles. Or 3,000.

    Clubs like these, names that are scrawled in graffiti from Chester
    to Los Angeles, command instant product recognition. People who have
    never seen a football match have heard of Manchester United who,
    incidentally, are considering launching their own television
    station, with their matches sold all over the world to United loons.

    These are links forged through television, of course, the saint and
    the devil of sport. The experience, once treasured, of enduring the
    wind and the rain, a sort of penitential bonding, seems no longer to
    matter. So if you're not even going to go, you might as well watch
    what's on, and what's on is rarely Partick Thistle.

    All that some of these small clubs have left by way of support are
    the few hundred who hire the supporters' bus for another away
    thrashing, and the silent interest of people who adopt them like
    raggedy-arsed waifs. (I can tell you that Emley are doing reasonably
    well in the Unibond Premier League this season, after a middling
    time last winter, only because I stuck my flag to their cause after
    a visit there last Christmas.)

    What initially looked like an innocent inquiry into where the future
    lay for football ultimately left a sour taste; market-driven
    loyalty, say the figures, is the future. Which is really a
    retrograde step, if you think about it - like the squire signing up
    the serfs.

    Wee Scotty is happy now, though. He's moved back to Glasgow.

    							Kevin Mitchell    "

RE .3

IMHO this is nothing new. I grow up in Taunton, Somerset 30 odd year ago. I
don't remember any Taunton Town or Yeovil, or Exeter supporters in school, but
every lad supported some team nearly all being first division. We had the
posters on the wall, the bobble hats, the team strips etc back then. How is
this different today?

And talking of the small clubs I don't think the Somerset clubs have shrunk in
support or facilities over the last several decades. If anything they have
grown. Exeter has had a fair bit of rebuilding a while back and Yeovil moved
into a complete new stadium a few years ago.

The crowds may be smaller but that is universal. It a shame that in this
country we always look to knock and rarely look at the positives changes.

Rgds, SteveP.


    re -1
    
    Steve,
    
    Couple of quick points:
    
    	- Exeter is in Devon.
    
    	- The clubs (aside from Taunton Town) aren't particularly local to
    	  Taunton. smaller clubs tend to survive through people who live,
    	  or have lived, locally. Obviously the bigger clubs get more
    	  "support" from armchair fans as they are on the tv & in the media
    	  more often.
    
    Stuart  

Stuart,

Thank you for the geography lesson but I never said that Exeter was in 
Somerset. Exeter are though the nearest league team being only 35 miles away 
and about 40 minutes on the train. 

As I said before I can't remember anyone supporting Exeter at the time as we 
all supported a big side buying the strips etc and going on the occational 
coach or train trip to matches.

It still seems the same today.

Rgds, Steve.

    
    Thought I would ressurrect this note with the proposal that is being
    considered to regionalise the 3rd division.
    
    The proposal is to include 16 Conference teams, which would include
    Hereford. Is this a good idea? Possibly, but how would it affect
    promotion to the 2nd Division? And also is it likely to be extended to
    the 2nd Division?
    
    IMHO it would actually knock football back about 20-30 years, I can't
    remember when this idea was last in force. But, it would give more
    teams League status and hopefully stop the farce that befell Stevenage
    Town at the end of last season, about their stadium not being upto
    League standards. 
    
    I also wonder how the promotion and relegation issues would be decided.
    My thouhgts are that the top teams in the regions would gain automatic
    promotion with the teams in 3rd place having a play-off for the last
    place. But it may end up with 3 teams from the same region being in the
    bottom 3 of the 2nd Div.
    
    It could go on with all sorts of permutations. Anybody else with
    thoughts?
    
    Neal.