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15 February, 2000 - (SEASON ONE/S1) Non League Football
by Jenny Beale aka Paul Hendrie (Soccer All Stars Manager) I would like to talk about the passion of non-league football and how the clubs and fans in the lower leagues can keep the romance of football being swallowed up by SKY and the big multi-media companies. I am actually a Aston Villa season ticket holder (don't laugh), but when Villa aren't at home you will find me at my local Doc Marten Premier League club Tamworth FC. Tamworth are managed by Paul Hendrie, hence my alter-ego. Mark Hallam, Tim Steele and Andy Dyer are players and the first team coach at Tamworth, hence why they are my coaching team in SAS. I hope I'm not being biased when I say this but Tamworth are probably some of the best fans in the world. The club was formed around 1902, I don't know the exact year, that is longer than some league clubs and was remarkable as Tamworth is such a small town. Even today Tamworth only has a population of 100,000. After years of trouble and strife and almost going out of business, Tamworth managed to gain promotion to the Doc Martens Premier league, this is just one league under the Conference. On the last home game of the season, almost 2000 people crammed into Tamworth's small ground, to see the presentation of probably the biggest trophy ever, believe me Juninho could hide behind this trophy!! Also that year we played WBA at The Hawthorns in the Birmingham Senior Cup, WBA may have played a reserve/youth team that night, but Tamworth ran out 3-0 winners at THE HAWTHORNS. 1000 people were there that night, all Tamworth fans, and we didn't stop singing all night. A few years later Tamworth managed to reach the 1st round of the FA cup, we drew Exeter at home. After 15mins Exeter were 1-0 up and we feared a mauling. But with the support of 3000 fans, we pulled it back to 2-1. Then the cock up of cock up's was witnessed. The ref signaled for 3 mins extra time, I know this as I was stood just behind the fourth official. The fourth official for some reason held up the 5min board and play continued. Exeter scored in the 7th min of extra time. The ref signaled 3, the 4th official held the 5min board and then the ref plays 7mins. Something went wrong somewhere. Tamworth lost the replay 4-1. A year later Tamworth had progressed to the 4th qualifying round of the FA cup, where we faced Scarborough away. We were not expecting a victory, Scarborough were just out the div 3 after all. 1000 Tamworth fans made the trip to Scarborough. The players had spent the night in Scarborough, the fans had paid for this as the club couldn't afford to put them up overnight. Well what a nice ground Scarborough had, that all went out the window, when on 18mins our midfielder Dave Foy scored a free kick Beckham would have been proud of, Tamworth held on and won 1-0. At the final whistle there were tears of joy from many Tamworth players and fans. We all crammed ourselves into the Scarborough clubhouse and they refused to put the TV on to see the draw. How sore can you get!! Well, Mark Wolsley a player phoned home and got his wife to read out the draw to him. You should have seen the sight, 200 people listening to one man on his mobile phone!! We drew Bury at home, who managed by Neil Warnock, who had been manager of our local rivals Burton Albion (where Nigel Clough is now manager). Warnock quickly tried to win the Tamworth fans over by saying how much he liked Tamworth and told his players to watch out for how noisy the Tamworth fans were going to be. Tamworth wanted revenge for Exeter and we almost got it. After 15 SECONDS Bury were in the lead with a goal from Darren Bullock, former Nuneaton player (another fierce Tamworth rival), stupidly enough he celebrated in front of the Tamworth fans and got booked. Within minutes we were level through striker Warren Haughton. Then Tamworth entered dream world. Wolsley flies into the area, a Bury player brings him down, years pass, the ref waits an age and then points to the spot, up steps leading goal scorer Mark Hallam. More years go by, Hallam runs up and misses. Why were Tamworth fans upset, this was a club 3 leagues above us and we were upset at being level. The reason was because we were totally outplaying Bury, an alien would not be able to tell which was the non league club. The second half starts and then dream world is again entered, Haughton takes the ball to the bye line and puts the ball across the face of the box. Hallam is there and from 2 yards whacks the ball with all his might. The ball hits the post and then the net. He tried his best to miss but just couldn't miss. The celebrations could probably be heard all the way back at Gigg Lane. A couple of mins later Bury equalise and the game goes to a replay. While this game was going on Manchester Utd were thinking about Rio, I know where I would like to have been that day. If someone had asked me who Utd were during that game I wouldn't have had a clue. We travelled to Gigg Lane on a cold Tuesday night, not expecting much. The 4-1 mauling form Exeter was still fresh in minds. After 15mins Haughton scored, we held on till the the 86min when Bury equalised. The game goes into extra time, where Tamworth hit the post, the bar, have two cleared off the line and one disallowed for offside. Bury in their 1st attack of extra time score, Tamworth heads don't drop and they again hit the bar and post. The game finish's 2-1 to Bury. Tamworth players are in tears and so are many of the fans again. Bury fans give us and the Tamworth players a standing ovation, while booing their own players off the pitch. This did not help us feel any better. Listening to local radio stations, you would have thought Bury were world beaters. I have seen Villa lose a FA Cup semi final and seen Tamworth lose to FA Cup 1st round replays. Amazing as it may sound the Tamworth games hurt me more. Supporting a league club means you get so much more involved. You know the players nicknames, have a drink with them after a game and can share their hurt when a game is lost. This type of football is sadly lost in the age of transfers fees bigger than some countries GNP, and SKY TV. These clubs are the future of football,
clubs like Swindon and Palace might go out of business one day. Clubs like
Tamworth and Wealdstone (who have brought the twin towers from Wembly PLC)
can replace these clubs and as long as they remember their roots, then
football can go in the right direction. This
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