The sad, slow demise of Local Football

Just three seasons ago, Shilbottle Colliery Welfare FC raced to the Northern Alliance Second Division title. They scored 142 goals in their thirty fixtures and were beaten just three times in the League.

The following season of 2015/16 was equally successful for the Colliers, who made it back-to-back titles by lifting the First Division silverware and gaining promotion to the Alliance top-flight with the likes of Josh Hay, Matthew Graham and Brad McLelland smashing in the goals.

The Greens were being tipped for a highly successful campaign and the possibility of making it a record breaking three-in-a-row when they suddenly withdrew from the Northern Alliance and returned with a young side to the North Northumberland League last term, where they lifted the Robson Cup.

Now Shilbottle have withdrawn from the North Northumberland League, and the sad news on the internet (so far unconfirmed) is that Belford have also withdrawn from the League for season 2018/19 due to a shortage of players. It’s a similar story in many lower Leagues throughout the Northern region – three have recently withdrawn from the Cumberland County League.

Shilbottle are a former miner’s club with a proud tradition in North-East football; the pitmen had won the national C.W.S Cup in 1936 and they appeared in the preliminary stages of the F.A. Cup in 1948/49, 1949/50 and 1950/51. Belford have a similarly long tradition in local football, first winning the NNFL way back in 1922/23. These are established sides with a huge history.

So when you read about all of the money sloshing about at the top level of the game – the extortionate transfer fees, the mind-boggling wages, the scandalous ticket and shirt prices, not to mention the price of a pie and a pint from a plastic cup – the struggles that local teams are facing is enough to make you sick. And let’s be honest; with all the TV rights money, Premier League clubs don’t really need you to stick your hand in your pocket.

But local football is desperate for your support. If you can spare a couple of hours from your Saturday to go and help out at your local side, do it. You’ll get a much greater sense of satisfaction and you’ll be much more appreciated than just being a number clicking through a turnstile to sit on a plastic seat and applaud politely in a soulless concrete coliseum.

Because football is about so much more than those lucky few that make it to the World Cup. It’s about bumpy pitches and dodgy linesmen, hanging the nets and marking the lines in lime, the smell of the fresh cut grass, the laughter and studs clicking on a cold dressing room floor, the banter and camaraderie, sharing a pint in the pub after and discussing the game. It’s about friendships, and rivalries, and creating your own legends.

You too can go out and perform on the green stage for 90 minutes when you’re not defined by your job or your earnings or anything else but what you can do with a ball - whatever the standard.

Football is the same game whether it’s played on St. James Park or Windmill Park; on some dry, dusty pitch in Africa or snow-flurries in Scandinavia. It’s the people’s game. It’s our game. Dig out your boots, or whatever else you can do to help out, or we’ll wake up soon and it will be gone.