Fans turning to lower league football

bluealf said:
Just watch out for McBurnie/Manfreight lorries, they are nutters
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Haha I know.
Got to be careful sharing the A75 with those loons.
Just feel sorry for the residents of Crocketford and Springholm with all those lorries travelling through all day, everyday
 
I know a good few reds who now go to county , they give the reason that Prem football isnt the same… funnily enough this coincided with United going to shite and county having an upturn in fortunes. I known2 of those reds “chose” united initially because of their success, and jumped on to County as they started to riseZ

I guess weak minded individuals will always seek to piggy back onto what ever success is available.

I did a job for a guy yesterday who on seeing my City sticker in my van told me ,”im a red but me and my son go county”. Spun the “grass roots is so much better” line.


Now, its nothing to do with me who supports whom.
2/3 years ago i took my lad to half a dozen macclesfield games as it was free for him , maybe a tenner for me.
As much as i wanted macc to win, i absolutely couldnt get emotionally involved and couldnt honestly care less either way.

So its not a concept that i can get my head round, supporting 2 teams.
Ive had a season ticket for 35 years. If i ever stopped going for whatever reason, id still be a City fan.
 
IrishBloodEnglishHeart said:
Starting following Dorking Wanderers during COVID because of the YouTube channel that was doing the behind the scenes on them. Tried to keep up with their score each weekend.
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That’s really funny mate! Go and watch them home and away most weekends! Great story and a lovely club (manager/owner is a bit of a tit mind) but have some great friends there
 
I know a few people who have sacked both City and united off and now watch West Didsbury and Chorlton. They became disillusioned with the price of top tier football and now enjoy a beer with the match and spend their time watching them.
 
Kippax77 said:
Haha I know.
Got to be careful sharing the A75 with those loons.
Just feel sorry for the residents of Crocketford and Springholm with all those lorries travelling through all day, everyday
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Yup, but tbh that is also me, maybe not the loon part, not any more anyways lol
 
bluealf said:
Kippford, the village near Dalbeatie?

Delivered to the Mariner and the Arc at the bottom of the road a fair few times.

That is some dedication to watch a random game of football lol
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Yeah that’s the place. The Anchor which is the other pub in the village is much nicer, with better beer and food.

The Ark does a great cream tea and it’s only about £6.

I was looking to tick another Scottish ground off and that was the nearest ground with a fixture on while we were up there. It’s a lovely old stadium, with a big terrace behind one goal and a paddock along one side, but little in the way of atmosphere compared to lower league English grounds.

My daughter and I had nothing better to do so thought why not. It’s a lovely drive on the way up to Ayr on the Great Tourist Route. Although driving back in the dark wasn’t as much fun.
 
TheGhost said:
I moved to Leeds 20 years ago and used to watch the local non league side Farsley Celtic. A new owner came in and they went on a run of getting promoted 4 times in 5 seasons and ended up in the National League Conference (5th tier in the Pyramid) and played and drew against MK Dons on TV in the 1st round of the FA Cup.

I was paying £8 a game and could get pie and peas for a couple of quid. When they got promoted to the Conference there were new ground regulations that had to be adhered to.

The pie hut was replaced by a burger van. But more importantly there was a minimum ticket price charge of £18 in the league, a £10 increase per game. I didn’t go to many home games that season.

Farsley were part time and most of the other clubs in the Conference were fully professional. Also 16 of the teams in the League were south of Luton whereas the league they were promoted from was regional and all Northern clubs.

They really struggled on and off the pitch got relegated on the last day of the season at York away. I was there.

That summer the club went bust.

A phoenix side was formed AFC Farsley and they worked their way up to a reasonable level. But over the last two seasons they are back in the financial mire, there’s issues with the land where the stadium is, and for some reason were playing some of their home games in Buxton Derbyshire, 65 miles and 2 hour 15 minutes away from West Leeds.

Life, watching City, having a family and a lack of spare time has got in the way of me going back to the Throstles Nest.

But if I gave up watching City I’d happily watch lower league football instead.
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I’m a City ST holder living in Leeds but do like to get in 4 or 5 non-league games a season. It’s diabolical what has happened at Farsley. I do prefer to watch Guiseley due to better facilities (including a nice pitch), bigger crowds (circa 650) and a better all round feel to the set up
 
Non-league crowds have been growing at a good clip this last 10 years. I’ve yet to see a nationwide analysis of it, but there are a few league by league, or regional studies, out there to prove it.
I remember when the Alliance (Now the National League national division) first formed in the late 70s, a crowd of 500 was good and only a handful, like Altrincham, ever got more than a 1,000 and that was the case right through and well into the 90s. Nowadays, 65 teams average that and there’s tons in the 500-1,000 range. The very top few are ex-league clubs (and better pro/ rel over that last couple decades has help attendances too), but that aside, the growth has been huge.

fanbanter.co.uk

Top 200 Average Attendances in Non League for the 2024/25 season - Fan Banter

In this article we take a look at the top 200 average attendances in Non League for the 2024/25 season now that it has come to an end. Football fans watching the lower levels of English football is thankfully on the up with many clubs struggling for a number of reasons, be it coping with […]
fanbanter.co.uk fanbanter.co.uk
 
LangleyBlue1970 said:
I know a few people who have sacked both City and united off and now watch West Didsbury and Chorlton. They became disillusioned with the price of top tier football and now enjoy a beer with the match and spend their time watching them.
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But are they still blues/reds? Watch on tv?

And how emotionally involved can they really be supporting a team they have latched on to in adulthood rather than one that they have supported since birth?

Ill take my lad to poynton fc on a saturday if they are at home and no city and weather ok. Can watch along with maybe 100 others with a beer, usually know a few people, but its no way the same.
 
DMA's said:
That’s really funny mate! Go and watch them home and away most weekends! Great story and a lovely club (manager/owner is a bit of a tit mind) but have some great friends there
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I got COVID (and it was the first strain so I couldn't get out of bed for weeks) and decided to open up YouTube and ended up on BunchofAmateurs and just rinsed through all their videos. Fell in love with Dorking a bit after that.
 
Bluesince1979 said:
But are they still blues/reds? Watch on tv?

And how emotionally involved can they really be supporting a team they have latched on to in adulthood rather than one that they have supported since birth?

Ill take my lad to poynton fc on a saturday if they are at home and no city and weather ok. Can watch along with maybe 100 others with a beer, usually know a few people, but its no way the same.
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They watch them on telly, yes, and are still fans but their focus in terms of attending a match is WDC
 
Love City to bits but not sure if i will be watching all the games this season .
Its not the league i once thought was the best going with honesty, sportsmanship & good refereeing .
Its toxic run by the nasty greedy clubs with the help of their puppet Masters.
Think i might watch some of Countys game when on tv & see with interest what Wrexham can achieve .
 
I've flirted with the lower leagues plus Scottish and German football, but in all honesty I'm just missing the buzz from a good victory over a top team when it really matters, and unfortunately we haven't beaten either Arsenal or Liverpool (or a CL Giant) for two seasons.

I think it's an age thing and whilst I'm still keen and travelling to Wolves next weekend, it seems as though everything is more of an effort, and not helped by some of our lacklustre performances last season when it was obvious from an early stage that our energy levels had fallen off a cliff.

I enjoyed the trip to Bratislava, but otherwise, aside from a couple of late goals v Arsenal and Villa, it was hard work, and there were probably 3-4 away defeats when it could have been a lot worse.

There's also the small matter of two consecutive underwhelming FA Cup Finals, plus this irritating obsession with signing promising South American youngsters in a blaze of publicity, before promptly despatching them to the backwaters of European obscurity.

I can cope with not winning competitions every season, but as I said earlier, I just want to see more energy and purpose in our performance levels
 
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I started supporting my hometown club Yeovil, when I was 7. First match I saw with Dad was against Crystal Palace in the FACup, and we won 3-1. Next round we were home to Bury, and lost. How times changed! Meanwhile my grandad in Saddleworth took me to watch City at Maine Road and that changed everything. So whilst I haven’t attended any home Yeovil or City matches in recent times, I still follow both. I did see City away at Bournemouth early last year and City won, which made me happy. One of our grandsons started playing for junior teams and we went along for local games for a year or two, but the team he played for fell apart and he was invited to play for a better team, but they played over a wider area and it was taking up too much time for him and his parents to travel and train, so he quit. I will always be a fan of Yeovil and City.
 
I always watch Droylsden when City aren’t playing, home or away. I have a season ticket at both.
Once you accept that the lower leagues aren’t Premier League standard is a pleasurable day out. A beer on the terraces, chatting to players in the bar after the game. In some ways it’s a lot better tbh.
 
bluealf said:
Yup, but tbh that is also me, maybe not the loon part, not any more anyways lol
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Haha thought as much.
Actually the lorries don't bother me it's the idiots who pull onto the carriageway from the many entries on the A75 without proper judgement
 
Kippax77 said:
Haha thought as much.
Actually the lorries don't bother me it's the idiots who pull onto the carriageway from the many entries on the A75 without proper judgement
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I had two of those today, within a mile of each other, a luton van pulling onto the Collin bypass, you could see he was not going to stop, good job there was nobody in the outside lane.
 
I hope someone at the club are reading these comments. City have you jumping through hoops just to get yourself in the Etihad. Me and the wife are considering throwing the towel in after this coming season. Season ticket holders since the 1970s. Probably just get membership and go less. The latest fiasco about adding people on to your Friends and Family tipped the balance. Always a fkn pain transfering tickets when we can't go. Bring back the plastic cards ffs and let us decide who goes when we can't. They can still check how many times it's used. Its City or nothing for me. I've tried non league. Radcliffe but i couldn't take to it. ,
 
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