Isthmian League - Recent posts
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Over recent months, we have called upon regular followers of non-league football in order to guess
at which players might stand a chance of forging a career in the Football League, should they wish
to take the opportunity. First up was Michael Hudson; the proprietor of The Accidental Groundhopper
website running the rule over the Northern League.
Just over ten years after their formation, Enfield Town return to a ground of their own at
The QE2 Stadium on Wednesday. The first match is a Middlesex Senior Cup tie against Harefield
United on Wednesday 9th November followed by a Ryman League Cup tie against AFC Sudbury on Monday
14th November.
For our very last Non-League Day related story, David Bauckham travelled up to Middlesex for the
Ryman League Premier Division match between Wealdstone and Bury Town.
I was once asked by someone to explain this "football pyramid thing" that I kept banging on
about and it was only then, as a follower of non-League football for many years, that it dawned on
me that there are many football fans out there who have little or no idea that the Pyramid even
exists, let alone what it is all about.
It's Non-League Day tomorrow, but you already knew that, didn't you? The brain-child of Mike
Bayly occasionally of this parish and James Doe is celebrating its second annual event this
weekend, and the extent to which non-league football has embraced the idea has been refreshing, to
say the least.
Well, all of the leagues have finally started. The Isthmian League caught up with the rest and
started its competitive season this weekend, meaning that everyone has now started for the new
season, and this evening two of our four matches come from this league. First up, though, we're off
to Surrey for Chertsey Town's first match in Division One Central of the Southern League.
The story of how this evening's match between Ascot United and Wembley FC has come to be shown
live via the medium of Facebook thanks to the tournament's sponsors, Budweiser, has, it could well
be argued, had a positive effect for all concerned. The Extra Preliminary Round of the FA Cup and,
in turn, the tournament itself has received a shot of publicity for a stage of the competition that
usually receives next to none.
The non-league season the Isthmian League aside started yesterday, and we're delighted to be
able to bring you highlights of four matches this evening, one from the Blue Square Premier, two
from the Blue Square South and one from the Premier Division of the Southern League. The first
match is between Hayes & Yeading United and Alfreton Town.
As some of the regulars on this site will have been aware for some time now, we have been
writing up the pre-season on this site for several weeks now, with the intention of putting the
whole thing together as one downloadable PDF file. I'm delighted to be able to confirm that, with a
couple of hours left before the start of the Premier League and non-league seasons, it's
finished.
As the Twohundredpercent summer interval continues, we take a look back at Wycombe
Wanderers' run to the semi-finals of the competition in 2001.
The FA Cup is a competition that throws up surprise results every season, but some records
remain and one that may never be broken is that no-one from the bottom two divisions of the
Football League has made The FA Cup final.
With the future of Supporters Direct still under threat, it is worth taking a moment to reflect
upon an anniversary that will most likely go unremarked upon elsewhere, but is still an anniversary
that has changed our perception of how football clubs can be run. Long before Chester FC or FC
United of Manchester, before even AFC Wimbledon were formed, the first club set up in protest at
the ownership of one individual took their first steps.
After a depressing few days, let's try and lighten the mood a little as Mark Murphy brings
us his memories of the former home of Kingstonian FC at Richmond Road.
I only saw the death throes of Isthmian League Kingstonian's Richmond Road ground. But it still
had ‘something.' And (sorry if this is "too much information") most of my dreams involving
Kingstonian games are still at Richmond Road, despite it hosting its last fixtures in January
1988.
It has been a wretched season for St Albans City. Twenty-five years at the sixth level of the
English pyramid -one of which, the 2006/07 season had been spent a division higher in the Blue
Square Premier came to a crashing halt this season in a fog of humiliation, as they were docked ten
points for financial irregularities and finished well adrift at the foot of the Blue Square
South.
A few weeks ago, that Accidental Groundhopper, Michael Hudson pondered over which Northern League
players could make an impact higher up the pyramid. Now, for the second in our series, Barry from
the superb site, The Cold End assesses the Isthmian League's finest, deploying its current
moniker The Ryman League throughout.
For men of a certain age, the name of Leatherhead FC makes the eyes mist over and the memories
come flooding back. The Tanners were in Division One of the Isthmian League (which was renamed the
Premier Division in 1977, following reorganisation) when they beat Colchester United and Brighton &
Hove Albion on the way to the Fourth Round of the FA Cup in 1975, where the BBC's Match Of The Day
cameras saw them steal a two goal lead against First Division Leicester City before losing by three
goals to two.
It's Northern League Day today, a chance to celebrate the second oldest football league in
the world. With this in mind, we have reached back into the archives for the story of a Northern
League club that came within a whisker of making the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, all the way back
in 1978 Blyth Spartans.
With barely a whimper, as quietly as a mouse, a football club died today at the High Court in
London. It might not matter that much to many people that Windsor & Eton Football Club should have
slipped from consciousness today, but it matters to some the couple of hundred or so people that
supported them, those that played for them, were amongst the backroom staff and the volunteers that
ran the club through well over a century of history, for example.