The Vanarama Non-League Football Thread

[Bobfoc]

Holy balls

[gunnar hendershow]

Reading the recap of that match. I assume everyone at Meadow Lane is headed home with a full head of gray hair.

[Twist]

I would have gone today if I didn’t have my daughter this weekend, what a match to miss.

[Bobfoc]

Bring back the sign.

[gunnar hendershow]

They sure wanted to make that as stressful as possible for their supporters.

[Bobfoc]

The train strikes thwarted my plans to go to Wembley today, but I don't think I'd be able to walk back to the station after all that anyway.

[Lineker]

Well deserved County!

[Lineker]

Quote

Crystal Palace forward Wilfried Zaha and rapper Stormzy have agreed a deal to buy non-league club AFC Croydon.

The pair, who both grew up in the South London borough, are part of a three-man consortium alongside former Palace head of player care Danny Young.

AFC Croydon compete in the ninth tier of English football.

Announcing the agreement, the club said: "The consortium will own, operate and develop their childhood hometown football club."

They added: "Whilst completion is subject to legislative and governance procedures, the three consortium members are excited about developing a community asset in the borough that gave them their own opportunities.

"They hope to take the entire community on this exciting journey with them."

AFC Croydon were founded in 2012 after Croydon Athletic folded.

Zaha, 30, who was born in the Ivory Coast, is heavily involved in community projects and also runs the WZ Academy.

He began his career at Crystal Palace, before joining Manchester United in 2013.

After a spell on loan at Cardiff, he re-joined Palace on a season-long loan in August 2014, which was made permanent in February 2015.

Zaha won two England caps before switching his footballing allegiance to the Ivory Coast and going on to win 31 caps for his country of birth.

He has been linked with a move away from Selhurst Park when his contract expires at the end of the month, amid interest from Saudi Arabia.

Following the announcement by the non-league club, he tweeted: "May the journey begin."

Stormzy - whose real name is Michael Owuo Jr - has had three number one albums and won three Brit awards.

The 29-year-old musician, who is a Manchester United fan, was England manager at Soccer Aid 2023.

 

 

[Nelson]

This has to be right up there with any signing annoucement ever!

Signing number 6⃣ has been delivered 👀#RAFC pic.twitter.com/kskB7nynM8

— Rochdale AFC (@officiallydale) July 5, 2023

[lanky316]

Southend United creeping closer and closer to being wound down. There's been talk of a takeover but for whatever reason things haven't got over the line. A club that's always been close to my heart as my dad grew up there so when we were visiting family or old friends a day at the beach(regardless of weather) and a trip to Roots Hall used to be a real highlight of my childhood. Hats off to the players and management for carrying them through shitty conditions over the last couple of years but it looks like the owner is spitefully running down time so that any future consortium basically end up with a phoenix club. It's not like a group involving Ray Winstone are going to struggle to get together the money to buy the club and clear debts so no idea what's really causing the delays as time runs out.

[Hobo]

3 hours ago, Nelson said:

This has to be right up there with any signing annoucement ever!

Ok so Im struggling to get this.

the original context for this is that they take delivery of a bouncing castle that has a giant penis attached.

So they edited it to replace the bouncy castle with the big penis attached to be a new player they signed who happens to be a POC.

So, am I to read this as Rochdale are the organisers of the Family Fun Day at Phoenix Nights then they have gotten the wrong delivery?

Or am I to read it as "black man has big dick"? Because ... 😬

 

[Colly]

I think you're overthinking it, which they definitely didn't.

[Gazz]

9 minutes ago, Hobo said:

Ok so Im struggling to get this.

the original context for this is that they take delivery of a bouncing castle that has a giant penis attached.

So they edited it to replace the bouncy castle with the big penis attached to be a new player they signed who happens to be a POC.

So, am I to read this as Rochdale are the organisers of the Family Fun Day at Phoenix Nights then they have gotten the wrong delivery?

Or am I to read it as "black man has big dick"? Because ... 😬

 

It's a running theme of their transfers this window, the fourth signing is in a wheelchair and the fifth player in has a tiger permanently painted on his face.

[9 to 5]

32 minutes ago, Colly said:

I think you're overthinking it, which they definitely didn't.

110% this.

[Bobfoc]

2 hours ago, lanky316 said:

Southend United creeping closer and closer to being wound down. There's been talk of a takeover but for whatever reason things haven't got over the line. A club that's always been close to my heart as my dad grew up there so when we were visiting family or old friends a day at the beach(regardless of weather) and a trip to Roots Hall used to be a real highlight of my childhood. Hats off to the players and management for carrying them through shitty conditions over the last couple of years but it looks like the owner is spitefully running down time so that any future consortium basically end up with a phoenix club. It's not like a group involving Ray Winstone are going to struggle to get together the money to buy the club and clear debts so no idea what's really causing the delays as time runs out.

They were a promotion-chasing League One club only a few years ago. Recent events have shown that clubs smaller than the average Championship outfit are just a bad owner away from complete ruin, which means that fans can never be completely comfortable.

I can't help but think that the future will see more clubs go out of business and the lower leagues eventually repurposed as playgrounds for Premier League reserve sides.

[Hobo]

I work in PR and marketing and all it takes is for one person to a piece of content on social media up in a way you might never have consciously intended and next thing you know you're having to into a crisis communication situation.

I also am an experienced video editor. In editing there is something called the kuleshov effect whereby the viewer extracts meaning from the interaction of two shots. ie. If you cut from a mans face to a shot of some bread then the audience will likely infer that he is hungry. Or between a man and a woman lying on a bed you'll Infer that theyre love.

The basic example for the kuleshov effect is a mans face with a blank expression cutting to food, a dead body and a woman. The audience then reads the intention of the interaction between the cuts to intuit what is being said.

If you have a scene clearly showing a character reacting with shock and annoyance in one shot to whatever is in the other shot. That's weird message to put into a video about signing a player.

Now, I doubt they thought through the semiotics of replacing a giant dick having bouncy castle with a young POC and the racist stereotypical portrayal of black men. But once I looked up what the original joke was that was the first thing that hit my mind. Immediately my mind went right to year or so ago I listened to a POC talk about this kind of talk around male footballers and the harmful stereotypes inherent that are often subconsciously perpetuated.

The Rochdale comms team most likely thought "lol funny if Phoenix Nights but its our players" and I doubt the kid from Derby County thought about it either. Its a risky business though.

Im not totally sure what the worth of these videos is to the clubs. (After all this and I don't even know the players name.) It'll be quickly forgotten and I don't think it'll earn them any more ticket sales.

Its just viral video for viral videos sake because that's just what you do when you're a lower level football club. Does it do anything but get retweets? Are retweets worth anything with twitter dying?

[Nelson]

A few years ago, I was playing Football Manager managing a team in the North West Counties League called Prestwich Heys (using a modded database).

After that save, I kept saying to myself I should go and see them play in real life, just one time. I kept putting it off, then COVID happened so it just never did.

Anyway, at the beginning of last season, I finally went to a game. It was an FA cup extra preliminary round match. My itch was satisfied, that'll be it!

On the drive home I was thinking about the couple of hours I spent there and thought "you know what? I want to go again".

Long story short, since then, I've only missed one home game, towards the end of the season I started to go to some away games, become a volunteer at the club, bought the replica shirt and other merch and met some people I now call friends.

The reason I'm posting this really just an encouragement to go and see your local team. It's a completely different feel to watching Premier League and EFL games. There's a real community feel, I've stood and chatted with opposition fans, it's a fraction of the cost and you know the club really appreciates your support.

EDIT: The reason I'm posting this now is because the new league season starts tomorrow and I'm super hyped!

[Colly]

There were two clubs in my town, and I nominally supported one (went to odd games, played a couple of charity games there, actually had one of my kids christening do in their function room (the day after a charity game where one godparent tore his ACL and the rest of us stood on the pitch getting sunburnt waiting for the ambulance. The christening photos aren't great)), but they lost their ground and now play 40 minutes down the road. The other team have just launched a £21 season ticket, but I can't defect.

[Nelson]

1 hour ago, Colly said:

There were two clubs in my town, and I nominally supported one (went to odd games, played a couple of charity games there, actually had one of my kids christening do in their function room (the day after a charity game where one godparent tore his ACL and the rest of us stood on the pitch getting sunburnt waiting for the ambulance. The christening photos aren't great)), but they lost their ground and now play 40 minutes down the road. The other team have just launched a £21 season ticket, but I can't defect.

That's proper non-league!

It's a tough one. There are a few at Prestwich who were Bury FC fans and for their personal reasons couldn't support Bury AFC so came to Heys. Now they're fully with us but are now conflicted now Bury FC are back (and more so as they're in our league!)

[Nelson]

There's no FA Cup thread yet so I'll put it here.

Prestwich Heys got through to the Preliminary round of the FA Cup after upsetting Bootle 3-1 (who are a step higher than us). No fluke result as we played them off the park for most of the game. It'll be Penistone Church or City of Liverpool in the next round who drew 2-2 after Liverpool equalised in the 99th minute.

In the league so far, we've played 2, won 1, lost 1. A poor opening day performance as we lost 3-1 to Burscough who were only saved from relegation last season by the reorganisation of the leagues at step 5. That was followed by a 3-0 win against NW Counties 1st Division North champions Pilkington on Tuesday in a top performance where 6 changes were made.