THIS COULD BE THE LAST TIME – by ground hopper Pete Sixsmith

The Northern League season starts on Saturday and this could well be the final season in its current guise. The latest FA reorganisation had reduced the two divisions to 20 clubs each before the wretchedly timed decision of Team Northumbria to leave the league due to a revision of the University’s sporting priorities. Many (this writer included) will not miss them one iota on their dreary ground, poor refreshments and paid for car parking, but had they resigned earlier, it is possible that Washington would have been spared relegation and Darlington RA demotion. Typical students, leaving everything until the last minute.

I have been wandering the length and breadth of the country this last two weeks and have taken in games in Cornwall, Northants and Lincolnshire. It has given me an opportunity to see what the current state of play is in leagues similar to the Northern League both in terms of geography and status.

Geographically, the South West Peninsula League is similar to ours in that is stuck out on a limb and to get to anywhere other than Devon or Cornwall is a major undertaking. Most of the teams are Cornish and baulk at the prospect of taking a promotion to the Western League, where the majority of clubs are based around Bristol, Bath and Somerset. Consequently, I believe the FA have not enforced promotion from that Step League to the Step 5 Western Premier Division, although last years Champions, Plymouth Parkway did take it. The fact that it may well be quicker to get from Plymouth to Bristol than it is from Plymouth to Falmouth may have had something to do with it.

The standard of football is, like many a fallen Victorian maiden, poor but honest. I saw St Austell give a decent Cardiff City Under 23 team a good game, and then, in the company of Alan Birbeck and two of his fellow Newcastle United supporters, I saw the Saints win at Penzance a couple of days later. They had been at the delightful village of Mousehole, watching a tournament which included Newcastle’s Under 18 team.

Alan was as surprised to see me as I was to see him and it was good to see him – although as a hard-core Sunderland supporter, I bridled at the suggestion that I had been sent down to Cornwall by the new owners to see if there were any cheap players to pick up. There weren’t.

This weekend I attended the United Counties League games that were on offer at their annual hop. They mix their games with the Step 7 Peterborough and District League which included clashes between sides who sounded like a 1930’s British actor in Hollywood (Moulton Harrox), a firm of country solicitors (Rippingale and Follingham) and a something from a delicatessen (Peterborough Polonia).

The UCL is at the same level as us and it has been very much affected by the “changes.” Long standing members like Wisbech Town, Peterborough Sports and Yaxley have been moved up while there has been considerable lateral movement (an FA euphemism for playing about with bits of paper) for incoming and outgoing clubs as the East Midlands League is relieved of its Leicestershire contingent, while Bedfordshire based clubs were moved to the South Midlands Leagues.

It started on Friday night at Raunds, a town not far from Kettering and a club in a bit of a crisis. The new managers notes in the programme suggested that had he known then what he knew now, he would have been more comfortable handling the Brexit negotiations than trying to manage Raunds Town. Words like “What have we walked into” and complaining that they had not been allowed to train on the newly laid pitch did not auger well and a 4-0 whopping by a useful Irchester United team probably did little to convince him that he had made the right decision.

On Saturday, we took in a friendly at Corby where Yeovil Town were the visitors rather than watching ageing juvenile Whaplode Drove take on the aforementioned solicitors and then drove what seemed like the length of the East Midlands to see Sleaford Town take on Deeping Rangers. This was the best game of the weekend which Rangers deservedly won by the only goal. They are an ambitious village club and must have a good chance of moving on up next season.

Sunday saw two games in Wellingborough with Town taking on Peterborough Northern Star first and Whitworths following it in a clash with Cogenhoe United. The grounds are 50 yards apart so find one and you have found the other.

Town are known as The Doughboys and Whitworths as The Flourmen to reflect the baking tradition of this attractive Northants town. The Doughboys play at the romantically named Dog and Duck ground, named after a pub which has now metamorphosed into a Beefeater and Premier Inn – which is rather more prosaic than romantic.

Town won comfortably against a PNS team who played in black and white stripes and who thoroughly deserved to lose. They had an imposing goalkeeper who looked good until he let a sitter in for Town’s third goal after which he sulked.

Meanwhile over the road at the Victoria Mill Ground, Cogenhoe were warming up and then turned on the most impressive individual performance of the weekend. Nippy winger Montel Dore (not the one who appeared as the Cantina owner in The High Chaparral) was outstanding scoring one and setting one up before half time on a damp and chilly morning. The Cogs were in top gear throughout and ran out comfortable 3-0 winners. Be wary of them and Deeping in the Vase later on…..

The general consensus from Her Majesty’s Regiment of Groundhoppers was that the era of Northern League dominance was coming to an end and that as clubs moved up and down the ladder and the geographical boundaries changed, the fundamental shape of non-league football will change completely. Many remained to be convinced that that move would be for the better. We shall see.