Editorial

Welcome to the latest edition of North West Side Stories, and amazingly this issue now sees NWSS sail past its second birthday, how time has flown.

I start off with an apology for this one being a bit later than usual for the first one of a new season. As ever I wasn’t awash with contributions, and it took a bit of time to research a couple of the articles in this issue, but the main problem was an increase in workload in my day job, which left a lot less time in the evenings (and lunchtimes for that matter) to concentrate on football related stuff.

On top of that I had a big PC problem too, and one of the outcomes was that most of the pictures I took on my trip to Sheffield – which features in this issue – were lost. The paltry few that are attached to the article are all that’s left, but hopefully it’s gives a flavour of the ground and the club.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since I put the last issue together at the end of last season, including of course the FA Vase win for the club now formerly known as Kirkham & Wesham. People who have been involved with the league longer than me have experienced going to watch our clubs in Vase finals before, but for me it was a first and I obviously enjoyed the day as any football fan would.

I watched the game from the Wembley press box, and arrived at lunchtime to make sure that I made the most of the occasion, after all it might be a one and only chance. A free lunch and unlimited drink was on offer to all those who had access to the media zone, although before anyone thinks it, I didn’t see anyone up at the bar very much, it was very much tea, coffee and water that was the order of the day as far as I could see. Professionals to the end!

I was fortunate enough to have been allocated a seat in the front row of the press box, and I must admit I made sure I was sitting in place from about 2.30 just to soak up the atmosphere and also get my laptop plugged in and hooked up to the internet (you are given a login and password in your media pack to hook up to the stadium broadband connection when you go in). As well as power points and an internet connection, each desk in the press box has a little television screen, which I guess under normal circumstances will show the game being played out on the pitch, but on the 11th May it was the Sky Sports coverage of Manchester United’s title win at Wigan.

I’m sure I can be forgiven for spending a moment during the build up to kick off thinking about my dad and uncle, both of whom have passed away in the space of the last year, and who were responsible for sparking my interest in football from a young age. I wish I’d been able to have the opportunity to tell them all about the day and everything that happened, I know they’d have enjoyed hearing about it.

During the game I sat alongside Kirkham press officer Howard Jones and when Matt Walwyn’s last minute winner hit the back of the net, it was only after a few seconds of noisy and rather undignified celebrations that we realised we were the only ones in the press box acting in such a manner. The massed ranks of Lowestoft supporters in front of us didn’t look terribly amused, but the other journos in the press box appeared to be too busy rewriting their copy to be bothered.

For my part I had been jotting notes down on the laptop during the game, and after the final whistle knocked up a match report and e-mailed it to Rob Hurst, who had it up on the league website by just after 6 pm. The wonders of technology at work.

Now, the challenge for AFC Fylde is to see if they can retain the trophy – or will one of our other clubs spring a surprise this season? If you look at our League’s recent track record – Nantwich Town won in 2006, Curzon Ashton semi-finalists in 2007 and then Fylde this year, everyone around the country must be looking at our League with a certain amount of trepidation. Being drawn against a team from our League can’t be the most appealing prospect for the teams left in the competition. And if we could manage an all Vodkat League final for the first time since 1987….well, maybe that is getting greedy, but it is a very pleasant prospect to mull over.

So, after that memorable end to the season, what of this season so far? Dealing with the positive first of all, our three new clubs – AFC Liverpool, Wigan Robin Park and Irlam – have made solid starts, we’ve got a decent number of clubs still in the FA Vase and my general perception is that we can look forward to some right good promotion and relegation deciders as the season progresses.

I’ve got to say I’ve seen some cracking games so far. As I’ve said to a few people already, everyone would expect me to say that, but it’s true. Runcorn 4 Padiham 3 in the Vase, Darwen 4 Norton United 3 in Division One, Bacup beating Cammell Laird of the Unibond League 3-0 in the FA Cup, a cracking cup tie in the League Challenge Cup between Nelson and Ashton Athletic, a close fought early promotion clash between New Mills and AFC Fylde – the list goes on. If that’s the sort of football I can expect to watch for the rest of the season then bring it on.

On the downside, there is one issue that seems to keep raising its head and that is the behaviour of the occupants of technical areas during games. Alan Farnworth also touches on this in his column in this issue, and while I was talking about Alan about the content of his piece we were chatting about the subject in general.

We both agreed that one of the most disconcerting things we can experience when going to games is seeing people we know, people who are long standing friends or acquaintances, behaving in a manner which we know is out of character and unacceptable in any other walk of life.

It’s easy to say that football is an emotional game, heat of the moment stuff happens etc etc. What we are talking about here is normal decent behaviour, the like of which we are entitled to expect in a civilised society. Think of the great and successful managers in British football over the years – Busby, Shankly, Stein, Paisley, Clough, Ramsey – is the image they conjure up one of a raging lunatic standing on the touchline hurling abuse at officials? If they could keep control of themselves and behave in a dignified manner, and achieve what they achieved in the game, then there’s no reason why anyone else can’t do it.

I know that a wide range of non-league football followers read the articles on NWSS, and unless you are either a match official, or connected to a club in some capacity, you might not be aware of some of the information that is circulated around during the course of a season. For anyone not aware, I can tell you that this season the FA is taking no prisoners when it comes to controlling the behaviour in technical areas.

Match officials – and that includes assistants and a fourth official if there is one – are instructed to clamp down on conduct in technical areas. The assessors are being told to monitor closely how the officials control the technical area. If the assessor believes the match officials haven’t clamped down on misbehaviour, he must mark them down and make comments relating to this in his report. So, if you think that perhaps you have seen more instances of managers being spoken to or sent from technical areas this season than ever before, you would probably be right.

The message from the FA is simple – if this new hard line approach means that more club officials are reported for misbehaviour, then so be it. So, if anyone thinks that this battle of wills with match officials is one they are going to win, they are living in cloud cuckoo land, and they will need deep pockets to pay the fines that are going to be rolling in with monotonous regularity.

The same applies to the rules relating to jewellery. I’ve been at a number of games this season where I’ve heard players/managers/club officials complaining about a referee asking a player to remove a ring, and the usual gripe is either “no one has told him to take it off before now”, or “they can wear rings in the Premiership, so why not in this league”. The edict from the FA is simple – no jewellery, no exceptions.

You may have seen the report on the meeting that was held between members of the League Management Committee and Neale Barry and John Jones from the FA, which was published on the league website recently. This subject was covered in detail, and a full report on the meeting is downloadable in Word document format from this issue of NWSS. Anyone who believes that players are still being allowed to wear jewellery should read Neale Barry’s comments towards the end of the document.

I hate sounding off about things like this, mainly because I think I’m a bit too young to be thought of as a moaning old git. But my moaning is purely because I think our league is great, the football is great and we have some smashing clubs, and if we could get through an afternoon without hearing a tirade of abuse towards match officials I’d be a happier bunny. Rugby League and cricket can do it so why can’t we?

The moaners would be better to use the time and energy they expend on delivering abuse to analyse their own performance and make some positive changes. We all have two choices - wait for negative things to affect us, or take some positive action on the things we can affect. Life’s too short to be worn down by negativity.

Anyway, changing the subject completely, I was sad to discover on a trip to New Mills the other week that what I considered to one of the great iconic images associated with our league has disappeared. I report with sadness that the tree behind the goal at the clubhouse end of the Church Lane ground has been removed.

I’m sure that many reading this will, like me, harbour happy memories of sitting in the shade of that tree on a sunny day at Church Lane. My own particular memory goes back to August 2005, New Mills v Ashton Town, and parking my then three month old daughter’s pram under the tree and leaving her to sleep peacefully on a sunny afternoon while Ashton won 3-0.

Apparently the tree had been starting to become a nuisance as branches were spreading over the clubhouse roof, and would have hampered planned development of the clubhouse, so it had to go. I never thought that I’d ever find myself bemoaning the loss of a tree in my football writing, but I’ll miss it!

Finally, thanks to the new contributors who have written articles for this issue, and of course the regulars too, I just wish there were more like you willing to bash the keys on a PC. Anyone who fancies having a go should contact me with their ideas for articles, or even just suggestions for topics to be covered would be good.

In the meantime, enjoy your football, have a good festive season, and see you in 2009.

Ian Templeman

Editor

North West Side Stories

8th November 2008

Contact e-mail address:  ian@nwsidestories.co.uk

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