Adders To Subtract Themselves: Threat Fought Off By Club

This week brings some sad news and some good news for non-league football.

First, the sad news:  Atherstone Town of the Southern League, Division One Central, have announced that they will resign from the League at the end of the current season.  Atherstone pay their players nothing at all, but still find the costs of playing at this level prohibitive.  They are just about the northernmost club in their division, as the Northern Premier League edges ever further southwards; more on that in a moment.

Now to the good news.  Sheffield FC, the oldest football club in the world - they rather pompously nickname themselves "Club" - have survived a winding-up petition, which I must confess I was unaware that they were facing.  Club's chairman Richard Tims was quoted in the Sheffield Star thus:

"The HMRC are playing hard ball - it doesn't matter if clubs owe £500 or £500,000, they go after you," he said.
"Small businesses are stretched and pay bills at the last minute; we just stretched it (paying the bill) out too long.
"If I said how much we are talking about you'd laugh. It was a small amount and we paid it off. Small companies always have to borrow from Peter to pay Paul. None are awash with cash.

There's an interesting discussion here  on the way non-league football in England is structured.   Broadly speaking, there is an imbalance of clubs between the North and South of the country, which is causing the Conference North to move ever further southwards. There are a number of reasons for this, of which two stand out.


One is the number of leagues at step 5.  There are 14 of them; but if you draw a line separating the North of England from the South - which would roughly be from the southern end of the Welsh border to the southern corner of The Wash - the imbalance becomes obvious, despite that line dividing England near enough equally in terms both of population and area.

Just 4½ of the step 5 league areas would find themselves to the north of that line; 9½ would find themselves to the south of it.

The 4 to the North would be the Northern League, Northern Counties (East) League, North-West Counties League and Midland Alliance; the half would come from the United Counties League.

Those 14 leagues, of course, supply clubs to the three leagues at step 3 & 4.  Except one of them rarely does - and that is the Northern League, which covers the North East of England, plus Cumbria.  Teams from that league rarely seek or accept promotion; teams from the other 13 leagues usually do.  As the rules currently stand, 12 teams are relegated from step 4 - two from each of the 6 divisions at that level - and the 12 teams with the best records from step 5 are promoted, though only one promotion is allowed per division.  Ultimately this will exarcerbate the north-south imbalance at steps 3, 3 and 2.  So, what solutions?

My favoured one is this - though there is very little chance of its happening!

* Merge League 2 and The Conference.  No other major country in Europe has five national divions (sorry Scots) and only two - France and Germany - have as many as three. This would be a north-south split.

*At the next level down, have four divisons.  These would cover the North, South-East, South & South-West, and Midlands.

*The level below that, have 8 divisions.  Two would supply each of the four divisions above them.  Most of these teams would come from the current step 4, with a handful from step 5.

*The next level down would have 16 leagues, instead of the current 14.  The balance between north and south would be restored.

Kidderminster Worriers

The good news from Welling Utd and Windsor & Eton has been followed by bad news for two Blue Square Premier clubs, Histon and Kidderminster Harriers.


Both have been charged with breaches of the Conference's stringent financial reporting regulations.  The regulations were put in place to help identify clubs who might be heading for trouble, particularly with HMRC.
Part of the ides behind the regulations, I suspect, was that they would force clubs to examine what they were doing - having to make written reports of their standing with the tax people might, just, help clubs avoid getting into really deep trouble.


Kidderminster and Histon are both charged with submitting misleading or inaccurate information in their financial reports.  Histon have, for some time, shown all the signs of a small club that has risen above its natural level, and spent too much money in trying to stay there: now there's a reckoning to be paid and their troubles will surprise no-one greatly.  Kidderminster are a little different: they find themselves pretty much at the level they are used to - they even managed a short spell as a Football League club.  But for them, the difficulties are potentially even worse.


It's not just that they will face a disciplinary hearing which could see them facing a points deduction: their very future is under threat.  They have been up for sale for quite a while now, and this worrying statement appeared, not on the club's official site but in that run by the Supporters' Trust. KHIST:


Despite a tremendous amount of hard work our football club still has major financial hurdles to overcome. To survive the club needs £150,000 before the end of the month and a further £50,000 by the end of January. Although costs are being looked at so that the club is run in a sound financial manner going forward, let’s make no bones about it, without an immediate large cash injection the future of the club is uncertain.


So, not only are Harriers facing a points deduction for their financial reporting issues - Welling Utd were docked 5 points for much the same thing earlier in the season - they are now facing, I fear, administration which would cost them another 10 points, at the very least.


Worcestershire seems to have more than enough non-league clubs in difficulty.  Apart from Kidderminster, Worcester City have their difficulties with their new stadium; Bromsgrove Rovers became the first senior non-league club to go to the wall this season when they closed down in August; Redditch Utd have a tiny playing budget and face almost certain relegation from Conference North; and Halesowen fans seem, by and large, to loathe their owners, the Ingram brothers.

Welling saved, Royalists receive a stay of execution

Very good news tonight from Welling Utd, who have raised sufficient funds to pay off the debt owed to HMRC - with a surplus, too, so that "other liabilities" can be addressed.

Almost as good news from Windsor & Eton, who went into last Saturday's match against Hednesford believing it could have been their last but managed to get a 56-day adjournment of their winding-up order.  There is still work to be done; the club will almost certainly enter administration - or at least arrange a CVA, which would also be regarded as an "insolvency event" and would lead to a 10-point deduction.  A player exodus is likely, with striker Dave Chennells expected to leave, for a fee, during the January window.  Goalkeeper Delroy Priddie has already left.

Meanwhile . . . .  the Worksop v Mansfield FA Trophy tie will be played at Ilkeston Town.  That's two clubs without a ground, playing at a ground without a club.

Battle Royalist (cont) and Mansfield of Bad Dreams

As ever there are a number of clubs who find themselves sailing in choppy waters, though few can be in as much peril as Windsor & Eton or Mansfield Town.    Let's begin, though, with a quick look at some others . . .

I can only imagine the reaction of Bishop's Stortford  to seeing themselves due for a High Court appearance in connection with a winding-up petition from HMRC.  The petition had come about because Basingstoke had missed an agreed payment of outstanding tax to HMRC.  Except that they hadn't: all payments had been made and the petition should not have been served.    Stortford's complaint triggered this response from HMRC: 

"I am sorry to learn about the appearance of the advert in the Gazette. I appreciate that your email of 10th November confirmed electronic transfer had been made; to cover the November instalment. Unfortunately, the payment itself doesn’t trigger any reminder here to move on withdrawal of the advert. In the circumstances HMRC will seek dismissal of the petition, rather than the planned adjournment, at the Hearing on 1 December 2010."

Meanwhile Welling Utd managed this week to have a winding-up petition adjourned, for fourteen days.  The club is in negotiations with potential buyers, but nothing has yet materialised - not enough to be made public, anyway.  Presumably they managed to convince the court that something was in the pipeline.  I'm not so sure, and Wings fans don't seem to be too optimistic, either.

On to the two clubs mentioned at the start of this post.  In each case, there's a dispute between past and current owners.

IN the first case, that of Windsor & Eton, the former owner is also a potential new owner.  There's an outline of their case in the Battle Royalist post of November 5th.   Significant developments there in the last few days.

First, this outburst from current chairman Peter Simpson.  From which this bit caught my eye:

“Our income is £60,000 per year but our expenditure is £200,000. So it almost certainly looks like liquidation and you can’t trade if you are insolvent.

 
If income is just 30% of expenditure, expenditure is far too high.  That may seem like a statement of the obvious, but sadly quite a number of non-league clubs operate in much the same way.   What caught the eye of  more people, however, was another passage from that story:

Royalists, with the financial backing of former vice-chairman Kevin Stott, had been working around the clock to form a business plan to satisfy HMRC. However, Stott decided to pull the plug on Wednesday, leaving Royalists with nowhere else to turn.
It certainly excited Keith Stott's interest - he was quick to speak to another local paper, the Maidenhead Advertiser  but the article doesn't make it clear which part of Simpson's statement is "highly inappropriate and factually incorrect"  and I don't think Stott's words can accurately be described as a "refutation," but this evening's public meeting should see Stott put some more flesh on those bones. The  meeting is going on as I type this.  Windsor & Eton played what could have been their last ever game this afternoon, beating Hednesford 3-2.  There were just 197 people there.

Let's move some way north - and a couple of steps up the pyramid - to Mansfield.

The club was taken over a couple of months ago by "mega-rich local businessman" John Radford.   He almost immediately set about trying to recover money paid out by the previous board - either in dividends, to a remarkable £2.4million when the club didn't appear to be making a profit; or in loans to directors, most of which haven't been repaid.  The beneficiary of those dividends and loans - the greater part off them, anyway - was Keith Haslam, the club's former chairman.  He used a large part of the dividend he received to buy Field Mill off the club, and he has rented it to them ever since.

Mr Radford offered to pay the rent due to Mr Haslam's company - Stags Ltd - into an escrow account while the dispute over the dividends and loans was settled.  Mr Haslam declined the offer and, this week, evicted the club from Field Mill.

It looks as though this will take some time to be settled.  In the meantime, Mansfield are likely to play their home games either at Alfreton or, just possibly, at Hucknall.

The demise of Ilkeston Town and the possible or likely demise of Welling Utd and Windsor & Eton will have implications for relegation further down the pyramid.  I'll address that issue in my next post.

Battle Royalist

If there's one opponent that most non-league football clubs fear, it's HMRC.  Over the past few weeks a couple of clubs have managed to fight off winding-up petitions from the taxman - Histon and Dorchester Town spring to mind - but last week another club announced that they, too, would be facing the dreaded fixture.  That club is Windsor & Eton, of the Southern League, Premier Division.

The Royalists have come to my notice quite a number of times in recent months.  Last year they were promoted as champions from the South & West division with 101 points, but things hadn't gone smoothly.

That promotion wasn't clinched until their final game, played after the official end to the season; 101 points was just one more than the total gained by AFC Totton, who had played their final game on the due date, two days earlier, not knowing whether they had enough points to gain automatic promotion.  Totton had to go into the playoffs, where they were eliminated by Cirencester.

Even up to then, things hadn't gone smoothly for Windsor & Eton.  LAte in the season there had been a meeting with manager and players on one side and the board on the other, called to discuss payments owing to players.

Shortly after the season's end, manager Keith Scott left and it was widely expected that he would soon find another club - and take hmany of his players with him.  Quite a number of players did leave - several going to join Hemel Hempstead - but Scott hasn't yet found a new club.  The new manager was Dave Mudge.

This is where the rumour mill took over.  It was suggested in several places that Mudge had been angling for the Windsor & Eton job for a number of months, even posting on the Royalists' forum.  For all I know those suggestions may all have come from the same person, possibly a disgruntled player.  In any event, Windsor & Eton were widely expected to struggle this season.

(Translation:  I thought they would face a fight against relegation)

They've done better than expected, on the field, currently standing 8th: just two defeats all season, and unbeaten in seven.  I should point out that 9 of their 13 games so far have been against teams now in the bottom half of the table.

At this point I should introduce a couple more characters to the drama: current chairman Peter Simpson and his predecessor Kevin Stott.  It's no secret that the two don't see eye-to-eye.  

IN the last few days,it has emerged that the club has received a winding-up petition from HMRC  while Kevin Stott has has made clear his dismay at the way the club is being run .

So the apparent situation now is this:  Simpson would like to get rid of the club, and is prepared to listen to offers; Stott would like to take over; there seems very little prospect of the two working together; Simpson
fears that Stott will bring back former manager Keith Scott.

If Simpson is so anxious to cut his ties with the club - and I don't blame him - one wonders why he is so concerned at the possible return of Keith Scott.  Indeed, he's so concerned, he's offered a two-year contract to Dave Mudge, thereby making the club less attractive to any prospective buyer.  That isn't because of any lack of skills on Mudge's part - as I wrote earlier, he's doing very well on the field. 

Offering him a contract does, however, saddle the club with another liability, and it leaves in place a manager that the most likely new owner - Stott - would clearly be uncomfortable with.

How silly it all seems.

Mutual Consent

Or sometimes not.

There has been a bewildering number of managerial changes in non-league football over the past few weeks. 

Few managers can ever have been more bewildered by their sacking than Mark Poulton, of Chichester City, who play in the Sussex County League and are therefore usually below the radar of this blog.  There's been a power struggle going on at Chichester, who fired their previous manager Adie Girdler during the close season, replacing him with Poulton.  That led to some discontent among Chichester supporters, and the suspension of the club chairman, pending a general meeting.  The meeting saw the chairman overthrown; the new regime fired Poulton and reinstated Girdler.  Nothing particularly remarkable about that, you might think: but it was the way the sacking was handled that excited comment, from far beyond the borders of Nonleagueland.  For Poulton was informed of his dismissal by telephone; and if that weren't bad enough, the call was made during a game, while Poulton was on the bench, managing the team. For sheer crassness it doesn't quite match Tottenham Hotspur's dismissal of Martin Jol a couple of years ago - Jol, you may remember, had his dismissal leaked to the press during a televised home game and before he had been told about it - but it's pretty close.
In MArk POulton's position, I'd have been sorely tempted to bring off the Chichester goalkeeper and replace him with the smallest available substitute.

Elsewhere . . .

Kettering Town have appointed Marcus Law as their permanent manager following the departure of Lee Harper.  Law was previously boss of Barwell, who had gone 61 League games undefeated at the time he left them.  He has an excellent reputation, and seems to have made a good impression as Kettering boss.


Graham Heathcote has left Altrincham, where he had been boss for eight years, and player for a long time before that.  Alty are one of the better-run clubs in the Blue Square Prem, consistently returning an operating profit, though they have been helped in recent years by the misfortunes of other clubs.  One hopes that the loss of Heathcote, along with the club's long-serving chairman, won't have an effect on the way the club is run.

York City manger Martin Foyle left the club a couple of weeks ago, and is yet to be replaced.

Hednesford, of the Southern League Premier Division, saw their manager - former Northern Ireland international Bernard McNally - leave the club a couple of weeks ago.  Hednesford does seem to be a club where they have difficulty holding on to managers, despite a reasonably successful period on the field over the past few years.  McNally was replaced at Keys Park by former Telford manager Rob Smith, whose predecessor at Telford was McNally.  Hednesford fans seem extremely pleased by Smith's appointment.

Worksop Town, of the Northern Premier League, Premier Division, got rid of their boss Peter Rinckavage, despite their making an impressive start to the season.  That led to a remarkable player revolt, with several players publicly expressing their dismay.   Rinckavage was replaced by Martin McIntosh, who has considerable experience as a League player, in England and Scotland, but non non-league managerial experience.  Worksop is a club I am keeping a close eye on this season: I've got them in an each-way yankee at a tasty 50/1.  Imagine my glee, then, when Worksop won today, 3-0 against Ashton Utd  to keep their promotion push going.  Today was McIntosh's first game in charge of Worksop.   (The other teams I've got in my e/w yankee are Chelmsford City, 10/1; Cambridge City, 14/1; and Kingstonian, 15/2.  Things looking encouraging!)

Rinckavage moved almost immediately to take over as boss of Frickley Athletic, another team to fire their manager in the past few days.

Paul Gascoigne was widely reported to have agreed to take over as manager of Garforth Town.  He hadn't, and it appears he won't; but the rumour was enough to give Garforth a bumper gate - by their standards - for a home game against Warrington.   Though it definitely wasn't a publicity stunt by the club.  I just thought I'd make that clear.

Just when you think things can't get much worse, they get a little better

At last, some good news.  Or at least, some 'not bad' news; two clubs who started the week fearing that they might have played their last game will continue in existence, for the time being at least.

First, Croydon Athletic, the Isthmian Premier Division team that very nearly folded in the wake of the cricket spot-fixing scandal.  This week The Rams were able to post a bond to the Isthmian League, returnable upon their completion of league fixtures for the season; and yesterday - Wednesday - they were able to complete all necessary paperwork, allowing their game at Aveley on Friday evening to go ahead.

It's easy to scoff at the people who run football at that level, but on this occasion I believe we should applaud the Isthmian League - and the FA - for their patience and understanding.  Croydon Athletic appear not to be very popular in non-league circles, for the way they 'bought' their promotion last season, paying their players way beyond what you would expect a club with their crowds to be able to afford.  It seems, though, that they have paid all their creditors, including HMRC.  The club warns its fans that the budget will be 'very tight' for the rest of the season, and the team from now on will be 'very different.'  But at least  it still exists.

The other club with cause for celebration this week is Hinckley Utd, of Blue Square North.  They have managed, yet again, to have a winding-up petition from HMRC adjourned, this time until November.  This time there seems to be more cause for optimism than there was with previous adjournments: three local businessmen have been added to the board, and the club hopes to be able to pay its debt to HMRC through the sale of part of its property, which it 'expects to be finalised' by the time the next hearing comes round, in November.  Hunckley remain under a transfer embargo, and have some of their permitted 16 players injured.

Maison des Horreurs

The post below outlines some of the ways a non-league football club can get itself into difficulty.   It would be most unfair, though, to say that all non-league clubs facing hard times are in a mess of their own making.  An example of a club finding itself facing a potential crisis through no - or very little - fault of its own is Kettering Town.

The Poppies' lease on their ground, Rockingham Road, runs out in 2013, and as yet there is no indication of what is going to happen thereafter.  Should they be promoted, they would be forced to consider a groundshare since Football League regulations stipulate that clubs coming into the League who do not own their ground should have a lease on it for at least ten years.  Kettering's start to the current season strongly suggests that that won't be a problem just yet, but developments this week have sent Poppies fans into a lather.   Some background is required here.

Kettering were, for some time and with conspicuous success, managed by Mark Cooper.  Last season he left to take over as manager of Peterborough; he was replaced by Lee Harper, who was the team's first-choice goalkeeper.  Harper appointed as his No. 2  John Deehan, the  former Villa, West Brom and Norwich  player; Deehan was in effect the manager on match days, in charge of substitutions, with Lee Harper believing that he needed someone not on the field to be in charge of that sort of thing on matchdays.  Deehan was fired by Kettering's chairman Imraan Ladak after a 5-1 extra time defeat at Leeds: Ladak had disapproved of a substitution made by Deehan during that game.  Harper stayed: but this week he left, to be replaced by Morell Maison.

Maison is a former Kettering manager who was fired by Ladak after "only" taking the team to the play-offs from Conference North in 2006-07; he wasn't even allowed to take the team into the playoffs, that privilege instead falling to Graham Westley.  They were eliminated by Farsley Celtic, but gained promotion the following year under Cooper.  It was after that, though, that Morell Maison really made his  reputation in the game, during a turbulent period as majority shareholder, and manager, of Halesowen Town.

Things started quite well for Maison, who took Halesowen to the play-offs in the Southern League Premier Division in  2007-08 but the following season was a nightmare for the club.  It all started in September, with a game at Chippenham.  The game had started with Halesowen in second place in the table.  Chippenham beat them 2-1: after the game Maison called his players together for an on-field debrief, as was his habit. He became involved in a full and frank exchange of views with one of his unused substitutes, Dean Brennan (who had been the division's top scorer the previous season, while with Corby) after which Brennan required medical treatment.   Results declined: so did the club's financial position.  A number of players were released.  Replacements were brought in, several of them on loan: one, from Leicestershire, missed his stop when on  his way to his debut game and ended up in London, leaving Halesowen short-handed for the game.

Two clubs who had loaned players to Halesowen complained that they hadn't received any fees, and Halesowen were threatened with suspension from the FA - which would have prevented their playing. Those fees were paid, just in time: but two other clubs were not paid their share of the gate from FA Cup and FA Trophy ties played at Halesowen.   That led to Halesowen being banned from both competitions for the 2009-10 season - the ban from the FA Cup still applies in 2010-11.  The Yeltz Trust - a fans' group - believed they had overthrown Maison at a general meeting, but the coup was overturned upon appeal to the courts.  One of the leaders of it, together with the club's groundsman, launched a winding-up petition: Maison took the club into administration and they were deducted ten points.  Maison eventually left, only to resurface
briefly, and very oddly, at Chester City.

So, what of Maison's return to Kettering?  Fans don't seem to have been filled with enthusiasm, with some of them expressing the hope that he doesn't get good results during his spell as caretaker manager, lest he be given the job on a permanent basis.  His record as Halesowen manager suggests he's quite a good coach - as does his previous record at Kettering.   But let's say he hasn't got much business sense.  And he seems to regard any questioning of his decisions as a personal affront.  If Maison gets the job permanently, Kettering should do ok, provided he just does the coaching. 

When Lee Harper departed, Kettering's fans forum ran an online poll   to see who they might want to replace him.  The thread starter posted "Have resisted the temptation to add Morell Maison and Ron Atkinson" - Atkinson, a Kettering manager form the 1970s, was Maison's mentor when he was there previously.  Mark Cooper and A. N. Other lead the poll.  Life is never dull at Kettering while Imraan Ladak is there.  I've got the feeling that it's going to be even less dull while Maison is there - even if it isn't going to be much brighter.

How to ruin a non-league football club

I first undertook the study of non-league football in order to inform myself about individual clubs better and give myself an edge over the bookies.  In doing so, I have come across several clubs who have got themselves into financial trouble.  There are several ways that this can happen.  So, if you want to ruin a non-league football club, you could put into practice one or more of these tried and tested strategies.

1.  Use a club to launder money raised from   illegal activity.
This has, reputedly, happened to at least four clubs in recent years:  I don't want to find myself being spoken to by men in horsehair wigs, let alone by men wearing ski masks, so I won't name any of the clubs.

2. Live the dream
I know the phrase originated with Leeds United, who aren't a non-league club, but the principles are essentially the same.  What you should do is:
*  Look at the average attendance over the past few years, or still better the highest attendance, and base your business plan on that being an attainable average for the next few years.  Ignore the fact that the highest attendance was against a team with huge travelling support, and that the average attendance was thereby skewed upwards.  On no account should you look at the median attendance.
* Assume that if you spend lots of money on players, they will be good
* On no account should you consider the possibility that other teams in the same division will adopt the same strategy
* Therefore assume that your newly-acquired team will win promotion this season
* And that they will draw far bigger gates next season in a higher division, when you can repeat the whole thing again

3.  Look at the club's other assets
Prinicipally, the club's 'other assets' will comprise the ground.  You should take over all of the club, then decouple the ground from the football club.  You can then sell the ground to property developers, who will charge rent to the club for its use.  You won't be too popular with the fans, but who cares?
Note: Make sure that the local council will allow development of the ground for other purposes before you try to sell it!

4.  Don't pay your bills
Principally this applies to HMRC, who are likely to be your biggest creditor, but it equally applies to local businesses.  Make, though, that you pay your players, else they'll go elsewhere.  Indeed, you should strongly consider the next step:

5.  Make illegal and unrecorded payments to your players
The beauty of this is that it will get you into trouble with the FA and HMRC.  It'll probably make your fans regard the players as money-grabbers, too.

6.  Ignore any instructions made by the ground-grading committee
Using some combination of the above strategies, you've probably got your team promoted, though the FA have told you that you'll have to improve parts of the ground if you are to be allowed to stay at that level for the following season, however you do on the pitch.  Just don't take any notice.  They wouldn't dare relegate you.  Would they?

7.  Get your contracting of players strategy right. 
This means that you should put your weaker players on contracts so that you can't get rid of them, and that you should not offer contracts to your better players, so that other clubs can take them off you without your getting any compensation.

8.  Do nothing to discourage your hooligan element
Over time you'll get fewer and fewer visiting fans at your club, and probably lose quite a few home fans, too


9  Sign a ridiculuosly onerous contract with a local brewery for your social club bar
This will minimise  any contribution to the club's profitability and may even put you into an 'insolvency event'

10 Disrespect all your local rivals, especially those of higher status
You don't want them offering good young players to you on loan, or agreeing to pre-season friendlies, do you?

11 Alienate your fanbase
This requires very little financial outlay, but it can be extremely effective!  A few well-timed press releases or statements in the match programme should do the trick.

A lucky escape - or perhaps not

This is a new blog, so it will take some time to find its voice.  For the moment I don't know whether it's going to be about non-league football, or about betting on non-league football - this entry is, mostly, about the experience of betting on non-league football.

First, to last week's bets, recommended on here.  Eastwood only drew with Ilkeston, losing me 6 points; Carshalton won at Croydon Athletic, returning me 20 points from a 5 points stake.

So the figures so far are:

Bets recommended:  2
Bets won:  1
Strike rate:  50%
Total points staked:  11
Points returned:  14
ROI:  127.3%

There were no recommended bets this week.  Why not?  For a number of reasons.

First, I was a bit spooked that both clubs I opposed immediately ran into trouble and, in all likelihood, will not play again.  Their troubles were well-known, and mentioned in this blog; indeed, they were the major part of my reasoning behind making those recommendations.  Do I feel guilty about making money from their misfortunes? No.  The information wasn't exactly private, and I made money from the bookies, not from the clubs.

The main reason for making no recommendations this week, though, was the bookies themselves.

This was the weekend of the 1st Qualifying Round of the FA Cup, and I had hoped that Bwin - with whom I place a large proportion of my bets - would price up all 120 (or,a s it turned out, 119) ties.  But they didn't.

There were loads of bets that I considered.  I thought about backing Newcastle Town to win at Hednesford at 9/2; but not for long.  I thought about backing Hucknall to win at Barwell at 29/20, but was put off the idea by a Hucknall fan of my acquaintance.  I thought about backing Mickleover Sports to win at Retford, but the odds didn't seem quite generous enough.  I jumped on Salisbury to win at Highworth at 4/7; they immediately shortened, and kicked-off at 2/5: the bet had been widely tipped on the internet, including by me.
After some thought, I backed Colwyn Bay to win at Marine at what seemed a generous 5/2, and I also jumped on Stourbridge to beat Romulus at  11/20.
In league games - step 1 & 2 teams played a league programme this week - I backed Nuneaton to winat home to Alfreton at what seemed to be a generous 3/1; Alfreton hitherto had a 100% record, though it was  against a fairly weak set of opponents. And I thought about backing Telford to win at Solihull Moors, at 5/4.
I'd considered lots of bets from FA Cup games that, eventually, Bwin didn't cover, making a case for backing Dunston UTS against Bradford PA and Sheffield FC at Woodley Sports - in each case games were moved because the home teams usually use a plastic pitch, and they are banned in the FA Cup; and I also made a case for backing FA Vase holders Whitley Bay at Ossett Albion.  And Rugby Town's odds to win at Step6 Wednesfield would have had to have been very short indeed to stop me from backing them.
So what happened?
The bets I put on, and posted on soccerlotto, were on Salisbury, Stourbridge, Colwyn Bay and Nuneaton, though the Colwyn Bay tip was opposed by another soccerlotto member.
Of those four, only Stourbridge won.
Of the bets that I thought about:
Hucknall lost, as the Hucknall fan thought they might;
Mickleover Sports won at Retford, 5-0;
Newcastle Town beat Hednesford 2-1,
Telford won at Solihull, 1-0.
From the bets that I almost certainly would have had, had Bwin or anyone else priced the games up:
Rugby, amazingly, lost 5-1 at Wednesfield; Dunston UTS and Whitley Bay both won; and Sheffield FC drew at Woodley Sports.
So, what was my reaction?
Annoyance at the losing bets, of course: but at those I didn't make . . . .
Annoyance, mostly.
I should, of course, have examined my reasons for not taking those bets.  In the end it was down to 'feel';
that's a large part of my bet selection.  I'm partly guided by, but do not slavishly follow, statistics.
This week, my 'feel' was wrong.  Up to now, it's been right - on soccerlotto, anyway.
I'll have losing weeks, just as I'll have winning weeks.  Generally I've got faith in my judgment, or 'feel.'
Last year, incidentally, I did pretty awfully in the FA Cup.  Maybe it's a result of being a Birmingham fan.

*********

Some non-league news:

Things still look grim for Croydon  Athletic and Ilkeston Town, particularly the former.  There's the merest chance that Ilky will survive, but I would be more than a little surprised if they did.
Crawley seem to be quite unpopular with other non-league clubs, and they've been accused of making an illegal approach to another club (Billericay) for a player.
There's a bit of a power struggle going on at Wrexham, with the future ownership of The Racecourse Ground in doubt.  As I understand it there is a proposal that Celtic Crusaders (the Rugby League club who play there) are proposing to buy the ground.  That would, of course, make things difficult for Wrexham, if the
precedent of Stockport County and Sale Sharks is to be considered.  Ominously, Wrexham's independent fans' forum http://www.redpassion.co.uk/ has been taken down in the last couple of days.  There may, of course, be no connection with goings-on at the club but the conspiracy theorist within me suggests that there is - the club and the forum have been at loggerheads before.
According to a story in this week's Non League Paper, St Albans City have been 'accused of' making illegal payments to their players, though no formal charges have yet been brought.  
And Histon  have been 'accused of' chopping down trees which were covered by a protection order at their home ground, The Glassworld Stadium.  The trees were, it seems, removed to make way for a five-a-side pitch
 

Ilkeston wound up

Ilkeston Town were wound up in the High Court yesterday following a petition from HMRC.  The hearing had been the latest in a series the club has had to face over recent months; all previous hearings had been adjourned.

The debt dates back to the time when the previous owner, Chek Whyte, was in control of the club.  I don't know why Ilkeston didn't opt for administration,  the route taken by several other clubs.  Ilkeston had seemed remarkably unfussed - in public, anyway, - about this week's hearing.

Reports stated that Ilkeston "expected to sell a player in the next couple of weeks" and that they could pay off the tax debt in instalments of £1,000 "from income from the start of the season."  The transfer window doesn't operate at Ilkeston's level; it could be that another Step 2 club was willing to but one of Ilky's players - presumably Amari Morgan-Smith - but those two statements taken together seem to me as though they were prepared for one of the earlier court hearings.

 This is Derbyshire today reports this, from former owner Chek Whyte; " Mr Whyte denied that his time at the club had contributed to the club's demise. "How can we contribute to it when we took the team to the next level?" 

You contributed to it, Mr Whyte, by not paying tax bills.  You contributed to it by allowing the club to live beyond its means.  You contributed to it by recruiting players the club could not afford.  You contributed to it by taking the club to the next level.

Bostin' Links

Okay, I've recycled the title for this post from my other blog - and, perhaps it isn't the most sensitive title for it.

Why not?  Because one of the links is from Kings Lynn Town FC's website, and they are the traditional rivals of Boston.    Nonetheless, it's an excellent link: league tables. for all the non-league divisions from step 1 to step 4 - yes, all 12 divisions - plus the two in the general area of Kings Lynn.  Not just league tables, but league tables where you can click on a team name and see their record against each of the other teams in that league, showing you who has had a strong set of fixtures, or a good record against teams in one part of the table . . . it shows all the information the previous, "step 4 grids" link used to show, and more.  Much recommended.

If you are reading this, you are very probably a member of the soccerlotto.com website, and that's what the second link will take you to.  It'll give you access to more stats than you can shake a stick at - not just in England, but elsewhere in Europe, too.  There's a lively messageboard on it, well worth looking at.  If you click on it and subscribe - you'll earn me a fiver!

******

Kings Lynn Town, as plain 'Kings Lynn' were a step 3 non-league club last season, but folded during the season.  Indeed, of the 266 clubs who planned to start in the top four steps of non-league football in England last season, several didn't make it to the end of the season:
Newcastle Blue Star of the Northern Premier League folded before the start of the season
Kings Lynn, also of the NPL - though only playing at that level because of issues with their ground which was deemed inadequate for Conference North where they had played in 2008-09 - folded in December.
Chester City, of Conference Premier, closed down early in 2010.
Farsley Celtic, folded in February.
Rothwell Town, of the Southern League Midland Division, resigned from their league at the end of the season.
Merthyr Tydfil, of the Southern League Premier Division, made it to the end of the season but closed down in May.
VCD Athletic, of the Isthmian League, South Division, were demoted because of issues with their ground.
Grays Athletic made it to the end of the season, but were relegated from the Conference Premier; they 'resigned' from the Cnference as a whole.
Salisbury City were expelled from the Conference under that league's severe anti-insolvency rules, and ended up in the Soutern League, Premier Division.
The same fate befell Northwich Victoria, who ended up in the Northern Premier League, Premier Division.
A series of appeals, counter-appeals and counter, counter-appeals meant that a couple of weeks before the start of the season it seemed that the top four steps of the non-league system would have 268 teams, rather than 266, with an extra team in the Northern Premier League, Division One North (Chester, the reformed version of Chester City) and another in the Isthmian League, First Division South - Grays Athletic.  Soon afterwards Ashford Town - from Kent, not their namesake from Middlesex - announced that they would be 'inactive' this year; Chatham Town were moved from the Isthmian League Division One North, where they had, to their horror, been placed by the relevant League Allocations Committee back in the South division, and the two divisions of the Isthmian League at this level returned to their customary strength of 22 clubs.
Then Bromsgrove Rovers, of the Southern League, Division One South and West, closed down just after the start of the season, but before any games had been played.
Bromsgrove's demise was a shock of about the same magnitude as the one you experience when you wake up the day after Wednesday to find that it's Thursday.   Evrybody who paid any attention to their situation could see that it was going to happen; their whole sorry saga can be viewed in the fans' independent website .

Now Croydon Athletic seem certain to join them.

Rams to the slaughter

Croydon Athletic appear to be heading for a difficult time.

The club - 'the Rams' - had already found themselves the centre of unwelcome attention because of the allegations levelled against their owner, Mazhar Majeed, detailed in an earlier post.  This week Martin Eede, the man who was to become their CEO in a few days' time, announced that he was no longer interested in the job.  On Saturday the Rams lost 1-3 at home to Concord Rangers; immediately after the match their manager Tim O'Shea and his assistant Neil Smith announced their departure from the club, according to an announcement on the club website .   

With the FA Cup 1st qualifying round due next week, it seems to me to be very likely that players won't want to stay at the club for long, and I expect several to leave in the next few days.  Today, it seems, was a last hurrah for many of them.

Betting community has piled in on Tooting and Mitcham, who host Croydon on Tuesday; currently Tooting on offer at 1/3, having shortened earlier to 4/6 from I don't know what.

In-the-red Robins come hob-hob-hobblin' along

Goodness knows how many English non-league football clubs are in serious financial difficulty - but few can find themselves in a worse position than Ilkeston Town, of Conference North.

Ilkeston are one of many clubs who have been financed by a wealthy benefactor, and are now paying the price.  In their case the benefactor was Chek Whyte.   Whyte made his fortune in the construction industry, but a year ago he was declared bankrupt with debts of over £30 million.  At that stage his financial support for the club dried up.  Their commitments, however, continued, and for the last twelve months the new owners have been trying to clean up the mess that Whyte left behind.

As so often in these cases, one of the major creditors was HMRC: Ilkeston are currently facing a winding-up petition for unpaid taxes.  It gets worse.

The club is under a transfer embargo, meaning it can't recruit any new players - they aren't just prevented from buying players, they can't even offer contracts to unattached players, though they are allowed a squad of 16 professionals, enough for a starting XI and full bench of substitutes.

It gets worse, again.

Now they are seriously hit by injuries.  For their most recent game -against Gainsborough Trinity, on Monday,
Ilkeston were able to name only one substitute; two of their stating eleven were carrying injuries and, under normal circumstances, would not have played.  One of those - the club's best player, Amari Morgan-Smith,
was unable to play in the second half.  Gainsborough won the game, 5-2; they had won only one of their other five games played so far this season.

On Saturday, Ilkeston play at home to Eastwood Town, who haven't started the season well with just one won and five defeats so far.  All those six teams are currently in the top ten, and they have a 17-6-6 record in their other games this season. Eastwood's most recent game was at Boston,where they lost 1-0 but gave a very good account of themselves.

I've already placed a bet with Skybet on Eastwood, at 6/4; best odds now available are 11/8, from Corals.

*I'd previously placed a bet on the game mentioned in my previous post: Concord Rangers to win at Croydon Athletic, 10/3 with Skybet; that price was cut and the best price remaining is now 3/1, with Corals.


Bets will be recommended on a scale of 1-10 points, so recommended bets so far for this weekend are:
Eastwood to beat Ilkeston, 6 points at 11/8;
Concord Rangers to beat Croydon Athletic, 5 points at 3/1;
Both with Corals

Spot Of Bother

Just a couple of weeks into the season, and we've already seen one senior non-league team (Bromsgrove Rovers) fold, and another seems to be heading for real trouble.

More on Bromsgrove Rovers and their painful demise in another post, but it's the other club that is the focus of attention in Nonleagueland just now.  That other club is Croydon Athletic.  Their troubles have been overshadowed by the spot-fixing scandal surrounding the Pakistan cricket team, but the two issues are intimately connected.

This weekend The News Of The World  ran a story that has shaken international cricket: they claim that they paid a cricket agent, Mazar Majheed, to in turn pay some members of the Pakistan cricket team to bowl no-balls in the Test match against England at Lord's.  Apparently the idea was that a bet would be placed on no-balls being bowled at a particular stage of the game: this, surprisingly, is something that you can have a bet on with bookmakers based in the sub-continent.

Betting on sport, I should point out, is illegal in India, except on-course betting at horse races; all betting is, of course, illegal in Pakistan.

The players delivered; three no-balls were delivered on Friday with at least one of them appearing to be deliberate: it was something that caused some comment from the BBC radio commentators covering the game live, as I can remember.  No-balls, of course, aren't an uncommon occurrence in cricket, but the point about these, the NOTW claim, is that they were delivered to order.  I understand that the proposal made to Mr Majheed was that he would persuade the players to bowl a no-ball at some stage during a specific over; and that the NOTW reporters - who didn't, of course, identify themselves as such - would place a bet with an illegal bookmaker in India on a no-ball being delivered in that over.

So, what does this have to do with Croydon Athletic  FC?

Mazar Majheed is their owner.

There's more.

The club;s former chairman, Dean Fisher, was jailed in July for defrauding his former employers out of over £500,000.  And prosecutors claimed that he ploughed more than half of that into Croydon Athletic FC.  A club spokesman denied that any such thing had happened.  He went on to say that all money ploughed into the club by Fisher was repaid, by Mr Majheed.

Most people believe that Croydon Athletic was used by Fisher and Majheed as a money-laundering vehicle; and that the club's success on the field last season - they were promoted from non-league step 4 to step 3, or level 8 to 7 in the English pyramid - was financed with illegally-obtained money.  Fans of the club are furious, embarrasssed and frightened for the future.

Here we go, here we go, here we go . . .

This weekend saw the start of the 2010-11 English non-league football season - at least for those leagues it is possible to have a bet on.

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to build this blog up into a resource you can all use to find information about non-league football, and fairly soon I'll be putting some non-league betting tips on here.