Better the Devils You Know . . .

Saturday will bring a 5th round FA Cup tie between Manchester United and Crawley Town, a tie which puts a team from the Premier League up against one from the Conference.

Whatever else it will be, it will certainly be a cliché-fest: the biggest club in the world up against their plucky part-time opponents and all that kind of stuff.

Citizens of Nonleagueland may beg to differ.

They will probably take the view that this game will see a team nicknamed The Red Devils, who have far more money than their competitors and have a rubicund Scottish manager with a history of intimidating referees, visiting Manchester United. It may come as a surprise to some, but many in Nonleagueland hope that Crawley get thrashed on Saturday. Why? Here's why.

It was only a year or so ago that Crawley were in financial difficulties, and congratulating themselves on remaining competitive in the Conference Premier. Indeed, they were rather more than competitive: they finished sixth, just two places - but twelve points - from the play-offs.

Then in the summer they sourced a great deal of money, and proceeded to spend it: they have by far the biggest wage budget in their league, and reputedly a bigger one than most of the teams in the league above. Players like Matt Tubbs and Richard Brodie were signed, and the whole thing was dubbed "Project Promotion."
All of this on a median gate over the past three seasons of around 1500.

It certainly seems to have worked: Crawley are currently second in the Conference Premier, three points behind leaders AFC Wimbledon but having played four games fewer.

So why all the feelings against them? Is it jealousy?

Partly. Non-league - even in the Conference Premier - still retains, to an extent, its semi-professional ethos, though nearly all the teams are full-time. It's one thing having, and exploiting, a large fanbase; it's quite another doing what Crawley have done.

There's more to it than that, though: the one thing that really annoys the rest of non-league about Crawley is their manager, Steve Evans.

There's his conduct on the touchline, for one thing: the most notorious example coming at Blundell Park, Grimsby, in February 2006. At that time Evans was manager of Boston, and the game was being played in League Two. Evans disputed a referee's decision with the fourth official, and finished up being escorted from the ground by the police. Not just escorted to the stands, but thrown out of the ground.

Evans was already known for touchline behaviour of that sort by then. But it was in another area entirely that he became most notorious.

Boston Utd already had a strong reputation as a non-league club when Evans arrived: they were founder members of the Northern Premier League in the 1960s (having won, bizarrely, the West Midlands (Regional) League twice in a row before the formation of the NPL) and went on to win the NPL four times in the 1970s. They were founder members of the Conference - then called the Alliance Premier League - and stayed in it for fourteen years, before being relegated to the NPL again; they spent five years there, never finishing outside the top six, before transferring to the Southern League in 1998. This is when Evans joined the club.

In his first season - he only joined them in October - he took them to second place; the following year they won it, and were promoted to the Conference (this was before the formation of Conference North & South). In their second season in that competition, they finished as champions - beating Dagenham & Redbridge, on goal difference, and thereby gaining promotion to The Football League.

And then, it all began to come unravelled.

To the outrage of many, Boston were docked a mere four points for their first Football League season. Most thought that their place in the League should have been denied; and almost everybody felt some sympathy for Dagenham and Redbridge.

Evans resigned, and was banned from the game for twenty months by an FA tribunal in early 2003. Again, many thought he had got off lightly.

To general amazement, he returned to the manager's job at Boston in February 2004, but in September 2005 he, and four other people, stood trial charged with fraud; the charges related to the goings-on at Boston. Evans was convicted, and sentenced to a suspended prison sentence.

As the FA had already dealt with the matter, they could do no more. Boston, presumably, could have, but chose not to. At the end of that season, Boston were relegated; Evans resigned shortly after, and, two days later, took the vacant job at Crawley.

Crawley have staggered along since then, facing a winding up petition from HMRC as recently as January 2010, though they claimed the debt had already been paid; the petition was dismissed, with the agreement of HMRC's lawyers, 28 days later.

And it's becuase of their new-found wealth that many people are sceptical.

Two more down, and others struggling

It's been a while since I last posted - and in that time two more senior non-league clubs have folded.

First was Leyton of the Isthmian League, Divsion One North.  That was hardly a surprise - the club had drawn six home crowds of under thirty, and had missed a subscription payment to the league.
Leyton want their youth team to continue in the youth league.  IN effect the first team has resigned from the Isthmian League,  while the clubhasn't.  It's a case, I suppose, of having their cake and eating it, and the matter has  perplexed the people who run the league.

In the last few days, a more high-profile casualty.  Windsor & Eton, of the Southern League Premier Division,  were wound up with debts comfortably into six figures - around £60,000 of that, and the subject of the winding-up petition, was owed to HMRC.

They seem to be a well-liked club, and there has been much sympathy for them.  But I wonder what AFC Totton think about it all.  Totton finished second to Windsor in last season's South & West Division, despite gaining 100 points, and were knocked out in the play-offs.  Windsor will now be deemed to have finished bottom of the division, and will be "relegated" along with three others.  They will probably be placed next season at step 5 or step 6; that would mean another club being reprieved from relegation in the first division.
Two of the four relegation places have already been decided there, with Bromsgrove Rovers folding in the first few days of the season and taking one of the S&W places, while Atherstone have indicated their intention to resign from the Central division at the end of this current season.  The Southern League reprieve created by Windsor & Eton's demise will almost certainly go to a team from the Central division.

Windsor & Eton will, of course, have their results in the league this season deleted from the records.  That's extremely bad news for Didcot, the only team to have beaten them twice this season.  Diddy find themselves in the bottom of three relegation places; Weymouth move out of the relegation places altogether.

There are other clubs in difficulty: Redditch Utd  of Conference North will not be paying any wages to their players for the rest of the season.  Fellow Worcestershire team Kidderminster, of Conference Premier - and, not so long ago, The Football League - are facing a winding-up petition on February 23rd.   Kiddy are in the throes of a takeover bid from local businessman Chris Swan.  Swan had been in talks with Redditch Utd about taking them over as recently as January 24th.

Cambridge Utd, another ex-Footbal League team now in the Conference,  have had to let several players go in recent weeks to cut their wage bill - they've also fired their manager Martin Ling, but may have to pay him
a substantial amount to settle the outstanding period of his contract.

And then there's Wrexham.  

They've had issues over their ground for some years now.  The latest is that their owner wants to separate the club from its ground, and charge them rent for it - even though they've played there since the 1870s.  Now Wrexham has been taken over; there is no firm indication that the new owners will have control over the ground - and there are fears in  North Wales that the new ownership is connected to Stephen VBaughan, late of Chester City.