A SEASON TO SAVOUR

Printed in the National League South game v St.Albans City Saturday 30^th March 2019  We drew 2-2 in front of 744 people.

It was my ever first trip to Canvey Island. Once a go-to holiday destination, now most of the mobile holiday homes have become peoples permanent homes. But this visit wasn't for some nostalgic kiss-me-quick day-trip but a mission to see Slough Town cross the waters for the first time ever to play Concord Rangers. It would be fair to say that Concord, named after the nearby windswept beach, are punching well above their weight. The fact that there are two teams in Canvey with a population of just under 40,000 seems just a little insane. A few years back Concord did approach Canvey about a possible merger, but they were spurned and have now overtaken them as the premier side of the island. But just what is the future for a small island with two senior non league teams competing for players, supporters and sponsorship? And with climate chaos around the corner, what is the future for an area that is below sea level in places and still suffers occasionally from flooding? It's marshes have some of the highest levels of biodiversity in Western Europe and i'm all for football bio-diversity but two senior league clubs seems as bonkers as having clueless public school boys in charge of the country.

I don't like to criticise lower league clubs as I know a lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into keeping them going, but Concord has to be the worst ground in the league and for once Slough didn't travel in the numbers we have become accustomed too (still about 70 of us tho). Nice and safe and mid table, with the departure of some of our senior players, you would have thought our season would fizzle out. Not a chance - the last few results have shown that our managers and players want to finish as high up the table as possible in our first, very successful season at this level for years.

As the container ships passed by and the wind swirled, play off hopefuls Concord got dealt a good deal of fortune with the harsh sending off of Guy Hollis (later rescinded) then nicked a goal in the dying seconds of the first half. Another Concord goal in the second and a terrible half of football looked over and out until Lets-all-have-a-Party-Francis Amartey's top class goal – which as someone quipped was too good to grace such a game. You'd have thought I would have learnt my lesson after Sholing, but I needed to rush to get back home to a party of my whom and I missed Sloughs equaliser and, as it turns out the party, as all that sea air made me fall asleep at home in a chair. That will teach me for getting old. 

                                       Container Ship Ahoy!

Next up Woking. As the Brighton train heaved with people going to protest about Brexit, it took an hour just to get to Lewes. Our leaders tell us leaving Europe will be a breeze, but we can't even run a train service. I finally found Slough fans in pubs in a high street which makes Sloughs look thriving. Slough hadn't played at Woking since 1997 but for some reason I'd never been to the ground.

Woking's Kingfield looks like they've stolen a football league stand while no one was looking and plonked it behind one of the goals. Unlike Dulwich which is now more of a street food carnival and dog show, they are not maximising their revenue with just one bar – with average crowds of 1,600 that's a lot of queuing. Today 2543 packed in to see the league leaders take on the mighty Slough. With only the Thames to cross for this game, we were in fine voice and arrived in numbers, some even deciding it was quicker to walk than get the train. It wasn't always thus. In 1985, for an FA Cup qualifying round game Slough fans recalled arriving at the ground and no one being available to run the bar! With Wokings agreement, Jock who used to help behind the bar at Wexham Park stepped in, while the Rebels helped themselves to a 5-1 victory in front of 340 people.  

The National South is a tough old league with no team a push-over, but in terms of resources and facilities there's a chasm and its hats off to teams like Concord, East Thurrock and I would add Slough that they more than compete week in, week out. For the Rebels they put in a masterclass, closing down Woking, protecting a 1-0 lead and coming away with all 3 points. It's been a brilliant season, and you've got to say the future for the amber and blue is looking very bright indeed. 

                                    Anyone missing a stand?
 

EARTH UNITED

Printed in the National League South game v Billericay on Saturday 16th March 2019. We won 2-1 in front of 759 people.

I love football. I love watching the game with a group of people who have little in common apart from the fact that we are from Slough, often like a beer and make some noise. I hate politics or the kind where we are at each others throats, where Brexit has become an all encompassing drone.

And yet we seem to be happy to ignore what's really coming round the corner.

We depend on so many of earth's life support systems, but it would only take one of them - the soil, aquifers, rainfall, ice sheets, pattern of winds, pollinators, biological diversity - to fail to trigger catastrophe. When the Arctic sea ice melts beyond a certain point this could render runaway climate breakdown unstoppable.

So forget Brexit, the collapse of our insect populations would give any sane society pause for thought and yet we carry on like the bees and other insects that pollinate our food are just annoying buzzing things we can live without.

The world produces an estimated 10 tonnes of plastic a second and our oceans are being suffocated in the stuff. About 5 trillion pieces currently float in surface waters, mostly in the form of tiny, easy-to-swallow fragments that have ended up in the guts of albatrosses, sea turtles, plankton, fish and whales. We then eat some of these fish and so end up eating plastic (which is probably more nutritious than some of the grub served up at football grounds.)

Any sane society would cut plastic waste as soon as possible, and yet here we are sipping from a plastic water bottle that is tossed in the bin as soon as we've drunk it dry.

Thanks to intensive farming, the worlds topsoil could be gone in 60 years while we continue to build on the best farmland in our never ending quest for economic growth - hardly the smartest move if we want to grow the food we all need to eat. And when we do grow it, we throw an unbelievable one third of it away each year. 

We spend billions on the possible threat of a terrorist attack but don't seem to prepare for the climate chaos that's being unleashed. I've only just heard about ocean heatwaves which are killing swatches of sea-life similar to wildfires that burn huge areas of forest.

We criticise kids for school strikes which aim to remind politicians they need to do something now about our changing climate. Telling them they are ruining their education, while we are ruining the planet we all live on won't wash. It's the adults who need to be given the detentions for their head-in-the-sand attitudes.

We've got solutions to many of these problems, and we need to act fast, yet our politicians haven't got the brains or recycled bottle to change.

I'm not going all Forest Green Rovers and say Slough should change from playing in amber and blue to green, or that we should have a wildflower meadow in the goalmouth but we are called The Rebels and we could for example aim for zero waste on match days. Ditch the plastics, turn the food waste into energy and power the floodlights with all the hot air that's generated on the forum.

I don't blame people for wanting to switch off when the environmental problems seem so overwhelming but when I look at football crowds, and think if us lot can get on under a common purpose surely that's possible when it comes to looking after the planet?  Seeing as we all live and rely on it to survive. 

SHEIKH IT UP

Printed in the National League South game v Hemel Hempstead Saturday 2^nd March 2019  We won 1-0 in front of 669

 

I could just lie and say that I got all cultured in Bath last weekend, but the shameful reality is that I just went to the pub and then watched Slough lose a game of football. But I did use Bath City's toilets which judging by the state of them, must be a listed building. Bath's ground is a wonderful old stadium, but its not pulling its weight and in the bar before the game they were showing off plans for its redevelopment.

Bath moved into Twerton in 1932 when it was just a village, and it wasn't really until the 1960's that the area started being developed. But the club and Twerton need a boost and the football club need to increase income streams if they are to progress. If approved the multi-million pound investment will include new shops, a refurbished High Street and improved public space with a new community hub, a gym, 3G pitch student accommodation, affordable housing for local people and co-living apartments for key-workers – oh and a new grandstand.

Supporters took over the running of the club in May 2017 raising £300,000 to pay off debts and this development is a throw of the dice, life saver for the club.

A life raft is what Notts County currently need to stop them going into administration with debts of £7 million, taking the chairmans company with them. The oldest professional football club in the world, in the country in which the game was founded, where the top flight is the richest in the world and has revenues in excess of £5 billion, totally bust. Or to put the £7 million debt into prospective. £7m a year is less than West Ham are paying Javier Hernández this season. Five league goals to date.

There are more than 50 league clubs in England and Wales who'd had their hundredth birthday before the Premier League was even founded. Yet only six teams have ever won it and its wealth is becoming ever more concentrated in the hands of the Big Six. Man Utd's £19.6m pay-off to Mourinho and his staff, would pay the wages of all the players, managerial team, coaches, and all other staff, at an average League Two club. For eight years.

Football at any level is a game of chance. One slip, one misplaced pass, one wrong decision. Small margins between success and failure but as with life money can buy you success and football club owners now have two simple strategies: Plan A: Be lucky Plan B: Find an oil sheikh/oligarch. What could possibly go wrong?

Last season Cardiff City lost £654,000 a week to get promoted to the Premier League. Cardiff paid out £137 in wages for every £100 of income as their wage bill increased by 67% while directors pay increased by over 400% ! Their loses last season will probably come in at around £400 million.

Cardiff took a punt and won but how long can these joke shop economics of the madhouse go on?

Martin Calladine from The Ugly Game Blog pulled no punches “The entire Premier League is built on a pyramid of tens of thousands of clubs, and on the accumulated prestige and game-going culture of millions of fans over many generations. The Premier League's wealth was founded on a century of other people's work. And while lower league clubs slip into financial danger, the handful of clubs at the very top insist that they alone generate the massive wealth in the Premier League. It's gangsterism. They have their hands in the pocket of every league club in Britain. And while Notts County slip away, remember this whenever you hear of a football club in trouble. Premier League owners, who insist lower divisions clubs must survive on a pittance, had a whip round to give a departing employee a £5m goodbye present.”

As someone much more eloquent than me put it 'UK football is the Wild West. A billionaires poker table. A bonfire of money. A castle in a slum, a banquet while people starve.'

Of course clubs can be run better, and Bath City have come up with one way to generate extra income but when I hear Slough fans moaning about our recent run of results, I wonder what they want. With average crowds of 815 at our council owned ground, we only have income from the gate money, half the bar takings, Slough Town lottery tickets, golden goal matchday sponsorship and ClubShop Sue's bobble-hat fund. How much do you think we should risk on player wages to get promoted? I would love Slough, infact, all football clubs, to publish their gate receipts and expenditure after every game and ask supporters for their ideas of how they can increase income. Introducing a rich shriek to the club is not the answer or the solution, but bringing a new mate or three along would help. Especially if they drunk loads of beer in the bar and had to buy a new pair of lucky Slough Town underpants for every game.