BELT AND BRACES IN THE NLS

 

Printed in the friendly v Southend United Tuesday 29th July 2025. We drew 0-0 in front of 869

As we prepare for the new season, I’ve been peeking through my fingers at the monster that has become the National League South while watching last seasons team get dismantled.

Everyone is seemingly being bankrolled by someone wealthy. Half the clubs are full time or hybrid, not that I really understand what hybrid means in this footballing context. Is it a donkey? A horse? No, its a mule! Dagenham have Qatari owners and went out and signed Andy Carroll. A donkey, horse or mule? Salisbury have a new Kuwaiti owner and Dorking always seems to have a magic money tree growing in their leafy back gardens. And little old Slough? Well we have Ash and his merry men, powering the club as it should be through community activity, local sponsorships – and beer. I'm surprised we haven’t got a micropub in one of the turnstiles.

So let’s take a look at some of the financial messes clubs find themselves in. Maidenhead lost £500,000 last season trying unsuccessfully to stay up – with only the Kilman transfer sell-on money keeping them afloat. Hampton and Richmond haemorrhaged over £1.1 million while Ebbsflett have spent a fortune to go nowhere fast. Our opponents tonight Southend spent many years in a financial mess – now its Morecambe's turn to be sunk thanks to another dodgy football owner.

The National League is now chock a block with ex league clubs – or BELTS as Sutton United ‘Gandermonium’ fanzine dubbed them (‘Big Ex-League Teams’ is the polite version) and now more and more of them are finding themselves even lower down the footballing pyramid.

Look I know Dagenham have been in the Football League and no disrespect, but it’s hard for me to see them as BELTers. I remember going there as a youngster, standing behind the goal on a grass bank while they swallowed Redbridge Forest, who themselves had devoured Walthamstow, Leytonstone and Ilford. That’s just greedy. Just as I get quoted the ‘Come Friendly Bombs’ poem when I say where I’m from, Torquay supporters must be sick of Basil Fawlty. Not helped by the hotel I stayed in last season seemingly coming straight from the set. And at £25 a night, it was only £3 more than what Torquay are charging away fans to watch 90 minutes of football. Mind you, it felt like I only got 90 minutes of sleep in my bed after another night on the razzle with the Rebel Rabble.

So what of Slough? Have we become the Brighton of the National League in recruitment? Unearthing gems who want to come to our club because they can see progression in their careers. I’ve got nothing against someone wanting to put a few more quid in their pocket or making the step up to full time football. Wouldn’t we do the same? I think us football fans get a bit too wrapped up in this loyalty card.

We’ve got a crowdfunded new drum and some more trinkets but now we’ve got to think of a whole new song book. Maybe we need to organise a Slough Towns Got Talent to pick the best ones?

It only took 5 Secretaries of State, 4 Prime Ministers, 2 Monarchs, 2 Governments and two turtle doves but the Football Governance Bill is now law. So you would think every MP would be applauding a bill that was initiated by a Tory and finished by Labour and gives much greater protection to our clubs. But no, there plenty of opposition MPs who voted against it. Maybe they should explain why they did to the tearful older Morecambe supporter as she asked exasperated to the SKY cameras with her club on the brink ‘How one man can hold us to ransom like this, is beyond me.’

So beware owners promising the earth, just like politicians who do the same. Infact there’s going to be some very disappointed ones in our league and lots of sacked managers before the seasons out as those two promotion places become gold dust.

As for little old Slough? What do I want ? To meet up with friends, make new ones, visit new places, have some more weekends away and have a laugh with away supporters; give bloody noses to some of those bigger clubs, watch crowds increase, see even more community stuff happening and be looking upwards in the league table rather than the trap door. The obligatory plea for 3rd round proper-job of the FA Cup for the first time ever please. Oh and beat Maidenhead on Boxing Day. It would be the perfect way to celebrate my 60th.

What I do know is that whatever happens we will get behind the team – because that’s what we do. See you all at Tonbridge.

THE NEVER ENDING SEASON

Printed in the friendly v Brentford B Tuesday 15th July 2025. We won 3-2 in front of 558

I love runner beans. We grow masses of them at our community garden and they are easily my favourite vegetable, but are only available four months of the year. Freeze them and they taste insipid and soggy. So wouldn’t it be great if you could have runner beans all year round? Nah, I just wouldn’t enjoy them as much. That’s how I see the football season. I like when it ends (so does my wallet and liver) and I can really get on with growing runner beans and other vegetables (but not aubergines – they should be given a vegetable banning order). But now football is served up to us every day; never ending tournaments to satisfy the TV bosses, who cram more in until we become bloated and bored-sick.

There was no play offs for Slough, but I listened with fingers and toes crossed while putting pins in a black and white voodoo dolly, hoping that we would be playing Maidenhead next season. That seemed to do the trick.

I paid a subscription and watched a roller coaster of a game against Oldham and Southend in the National League final – with an attendance of over 50,000 that could have been even more if it wasn’t capped because of the football fans pet hate, transport disruption. A goal from a recently departed Slough player and a fairytale ending for a loveable Oldham owner who was beaming with pride knowing how a successful team can help transform his home town.

I watched this on my phone via another company hoping to hit the TV football jackpot, DAZN. You should never trust a company whose name you can’t pronounce, and DAZN sounds like some cheap imitation washing machine powder from Bulgaria that doesn’t remove the stains, but adds a few new ones.

Shopping Powder TV also has exclusive access to the Club World Cup, a superleague with bells on. Like a travelling footballing salesman meets the circus. I managed to miss it all. But im glad we’ve sacrificed FA Cup replays for competitions like this.

We all know where we are heading with the Club World Cup. The powers that be have still got the hump they couldn’t get their European super league, so they chip away until its already happening, behind our backs in plain sight.

And as world temperatures continue to climb, will people be able to play football in the suffocating heat of the summer? And will American TV finally realise their dream of multiple drinks breaks so they can cram in more adverts for food and drinks peak athletes wouldn’t touch with a barge pole? Will cold wet neck towels become a fashion accessory like those stupid sleeping bag coats people wear that were designed for keeping warm after a swim in the sea not for a shopping trip to Waitrose.

TV viewing figures nose dived 10% in last part of the season – blamed on a Premier League where Liverpool won at a canter while the Championship Clubs all got relegated again for the second season running. Premier league clubs are chasing tourists rather than those annoying so called ‘legacy’ fans, who never spend enough in the superstores buying the fifth away kit and the branded pants. This is where savvy lower league owners can tap into to disgruntled supporters and make them their own.

DAZN and the Club World Cup is of course bankrolled by Saudi Arabia who are experimenting with a whole new Virtual Reality fans experience. My mate Gibby whose an expert in these things told me ‘The Fifa Club World Cup VR Experience has shown the way forward for sports in VR and mixed reality….with spectacular views feeling like you are on the pitch, in the crowd...while Subbuteo type pitches show you real time movement of players.’

We talked about whether this solitary experience of football is the future. Another way to add to the loneliness and obesity epidemic? Or will people still want to be immersed in the real world, in a crowd of people with restricted views but collective joy and misery.

As we’ve been told ‘Football its a simple game, made complicated by people who should know better.’ But the football of the future and the way we consume it is probably as unimaginable to us now as todays football would be to a supporter 100 years ago. Still, when you boil it down, its still 22 players kicking the ball around a pitch. And then blaming the ref when things don’t go the way for their team