Our First Silverware of the Season

Last season Manchester United competed for six trophies and succeeded in winning four. This season Bath City will compete for at least five trophies and succeeded in winning the first today: the Coronation Cup. The Coronation Cup has a long and illustrious history of sitting under a thick layer of dust in the basement of Twerton Park, interrupted occasionally by its use to add a veneer of importance to pre-season friendlies. Today was no exception, as the Bluebirds from local rival Chippenham Town pitched up and City put the trophy on the line for the first time in fifteen years.

Today was also notable because it was my step-father's first time to attend a real football match. He and I have been to untold number of baseball games together, but this was his first visit to the UK since I have started supporting the men in stripes. It was interesting to see Twerton Park again through the eyes of a newcomer, and he was also useful as childcare help. Because City had very kindly made entrance for under-16s free, and because they do like coming (even though they struggle to pay attention to an entire match) I brought both my boys. They try hard, and benefit from the child's gift of finding entertainment value in the mundane. I had managed to miss how exciting City's old fashioned loos could be. You wee against a wall! How cool!

I was not sure how my step-father would react to the game. I feel a lot of affection for Twerton Park, but I will admit it is sometimes an acquired taste. I was also worried how much he would enjoy the game as he does not have much experience watching football. My worries were further heightened when he asked me why there were ten referees on the pitch (referees in America usually wear black and white striped shirts). This was, thankfully, a joke, and I was further reassured when he successfully explained the off-side rule. He was very impressed by how close he was to the action. This was good, because one sure thing about non-league football it is that you are never inconvenienced by large crowds of people between you and the pitch. We settled in with cups of tea and doughnuts and watched the game begin.

Right away it was pretty obvious that City were not in danger of storing the Coronation Cup in Chippenham Town's basement for the next fifteen years. Before promotion three seasons ago, City played in the same league as Chippenham, but you would not have known it from today's play. City dominated from the outset and scored a quick goal at three minutes. Stuart Douglas (Dreadlock Doug) flicked a quick cross over the Chippneham keeper to winger Richard Evans who tapped it home easily. As City continued to press after this early score I began to hope that they would put the game away early.

I was hoping this despite knowing full well that City's most pressing problem this closed season is a lack of goalscoring power. All of last season City struggled to score goals. Since the object of football is to score goals it is a pretty serious problem. It is amazing that City managed to come in eighth place last season mostly on the strength of its defence, but that is what happened. Against strong teams City's back line was able to keep the side in the game by refusing to back down. Against weak teams, sometimes ridiculously weak teams, City would dominate the entire pitch except for the six yard box in front of the goal. Weak teams eventually grow in confidence if they are not stomped on early, and sometimes sneak in a goal against the run of play. This is how we lost to Aylesbury United in the third qualifying round of the FA Cup, a loss that led to a manager resigning and several players leaving the squad. As today's match continued without further scoring, and as Chippenham resorted to the lower league tactics of rough tackles and sitting deep in their own half, last season's worries for City came to the fore again.

The problem was not that City were taking poor shots - they took very few shots at all. I would guess, even counting the wildly inaccurate ones, City took no made no more than a dozen attempts to score. This was despite Chippenham showing a remarkable inability to clear the ball out of their own half (there were stretches of the game when my five year old could have replaced City keeper Steve Perrin without any detriment to the score line).

Despite this rather gloomy observation, I am not really worried. I think this is perhaps naive stupidity, but I'm going to go with it anyway. I enjoy going to City matches because I enjoy going to City matches. Sitting around afterwards worrying about how we are lacking at least one quality striker isn't' on the agenda. If I need stress I can find plenty of that at work.

Of course, even naive stupidity needs a shred of evidence to launch its delusions from, and today that came in the form of Jamie Taylor and Mike Perrott in the final minutes. Taylor has been signed after being released from the Swindon Town youth squad, and Perrott is homeless after the demise of the ill fated (and not missed) Team Bath. Both of them came on in the final minutes, and both of them played with a lot of desire and decent amounts of skill. Taylor showed the ability to penetrate the Chippenham defenders with ease even though he did not manage to do much once he had penetrated. Perrott came closest to scoring a second goal when he glanced a header crossed in from Sekani Simpson off the bar in the closing minutes. He missed, but he did something no other City player had done since the third minute: be in the right place at the right time. The fact that Perrott is billed as a midfielder and yet appeared to play as a striker was interesting and will need further investigation.

My children began to flag mid-way through the second half. They squabbled a bit and I had to separate them a few times. Immature play was not limited to off the pitch, either, as Chippenham resorted to rough tackles and shirt pulling more and more as the game progressed. Faced with such an onslaught of fouling the ref was inconsistent. Chippenham had four yellows and a straight red card shown to them. What the red card was for exactly was not really clear, but it is unlikely it was the most serious offence on the pitch today. The Bluebird's rough tactics was further evidence that City's play had progressed in the two years and a half years since leaving the Southern League. It was, in a backwards way, a nice advertisement for the quality of play in the Blue Square South.

After the final whistle we filed out to the sound of 'Drink Up Thee Cider' and paused briefly at the Bath end to watch the captain Jim Rollo lift the Coronation Cup. My step-father told me he enjoyed the game and will come back the again when he visited next. For the kids, the highlights were the doughnuts and being allowed to pee on the wall.

Stealing the Shirt onto Your Back

Real Madrid recently paid Manchester United £80million for the contract of Portuguese front man, Cristiano Ronaldo. This may have robbed English football of one of its best dramatists, but it was enough to cover about 12% of United's massive debt in one fell swoop. Florentino Perez, the once and future Real Madrid president, justified this record breaking price by sighting the merchandising opportunities that will come from having the 'world's best player' on the roster, particularly in shirt sales.

Shirt sales? Shirt sales? As an American I must admit that I find the economics of football shirts rather bizarre on several levels.

The strangest feature of football shirts for most Americans is the advertising, or as it is known in the UK, the shirt sponsor. You may think that Americans are comfortable with blanket advertising and unlimited commercialisation, but you would be wrong. There are certain sacred places where it is considered unacceptable. The chests of professional athletes is one of those sacred places. The only types of teams that regularly feature advertisements on their uniforms (other than Major League Soccer, which is just copying the European trend) are local children's leagues. Often a local restauranteur or plumber will pay for the uniforms and in return will get his firm's name above the number on the back of each shirt. The idea of a major sports team having something similar is unthinkable. It would seem rather desperate.

I can think of two reasons why this might be the case. One is that American sports teams tend to have their name written on the front of their shirts in big letters (or in American football, big numbers). We are not content with a small, subtle badge that can only be seen a few yards away. If we are going to see a major sporting event we expect to see clearly who is who. So, there has never been a time when American athletes have sported large blank spaces on thier shirts for admen to colonise. The other reason is tradition. English people often assume Americans have no traditions, but this is only said by people who have never been inside a baseball park. Advertising on billboards in the stadium, on programs and on souvenier knick-knacks is fair game. But not on the players. It just isn't done.

And, there is one more subtler reason. American sports franchises are not platforms for promoting someone else's brand because they are a brand unto themselves. Having a big beer logo on the chest of the most visible part of that brand is a fairly strange marketing strategy. It would be like producing a soft drink can that had 'FLY EMIRATES' in big bold letters and, in one corner, a small Coca-Cola logo.

The other very strange practice with football shirts is the way clubs use them to unashamedly extort obsene amounts of money from their fanbase each year.

In the UK a replica football shirt will set you back roughly £40-50 (the Bath City one I bought recently was £38). You might think that most clubs would be satisfied once a fan had parted with such an eye-watering sum, but you would be wrong. Any serious fan will not just buy a home shirt, but also an away shirt. Is that enough? No. Most Premiership clubs have a third version of their kit as well. This is because there is a small chance that they might visit an opposing club who's home strip is similar to their away strip. So there is an absolute, iron-clad, unassailable reason why clubs need three strips (and £40 more by the way, thanks).

Is that the end? Ha, ha, gentle reader. You betray such charming innocence if you think that is the end. These three shirts will, of course, need to be replaced every season. It would just not do to wear the same kit two years running. The home shirt will still have the traditional club colours, but without doubt will have several obvious design changes that will mark you out as behind the times if you do not buy the update. Oh, and don't forget to pay extra for the name and number of your favourite player (look out Real Madrid fans - you have £80million to make up. Get buying!).

And don't forget your children. They won't want to be seen in last year's Liverpool kit, will they?

I contrast this with my home baseball team, the Atlanta Braves. The current uniform worn by the Braves was introduced in 1989. Other than the occasional shoulder patch to commemorate something or other, it has remained unchanged. The 1989 design was in fact a return to a basic design that the Braves wore between 1953-1965. It is one of the best uniforms in sports. Why change it?

I must give credit, as well, to the directors of Bath City. After signing a two year contract with current shirt sponsors, SN Scaffolds, the decision was made to not make any changes to the home shirt over that two year period. The away kit has been redesinged, but only because referees rightfully complained that the numbers on the players backs were hard to read.

Unfortunately this naked grab for suporter's cash generally works. However, sometimes the more disgruntled fans do not give in. Sometimes they resist and clubs learn their lesson. Yesterday Newcastle released their new away kit for the upcoming season after weeks of build up. In the past this would have caused thousands of fans to queue for hours to be one of the first to sport the new design around town. But Newcastle fans are not feeling kindly disposed to the club owners. Last year they were relegated from the Premiership despite having, on paper, a decent squad. This was accomplised through a series of bad decisions and blunders, many embarassing to watch, and all of them infuriating to the Toon supporters. Sensing the unrest of their normally loyal fans Newcastle slashed the cost of the new shirts by 20% before they had gone on sale. Finally the big day approached, and instead of the normal thousands of supporters they managed three. One adult male fan and a mother and child to be exact. So they actually only sold two shirts. It did not help that the new design featured banana-yellow stripes, but Newcastle fans are famous for enduring anything for the sake of their club. Anything, it would appear, except contempt.

Expectation Inflation

Part of being a real English football supporter is having unrealistic expectation for your team's performance in the coming season. In the quiet of night as he lays on his bed contemplating potential transfers and waiting for sleep, a little voice whispers into the ear of every true fan: 'your club deserves better.' I say this not to ridicule English fans, but to commiserate with them. Whatever it is that bears this mental virus has infected me too.

This mania manifests itself in one of two ways. One is to be laughably optimistic about your team's chances. Although this relies on a healthy dose of myopia, it is the more pleasant way to deal with the problem. The second, more common way, is to see every missed pass, every conceded goal, every loss, and every season that does not end in promotion as an epic disappointment that has dire personal consequences. The more experienced practitioners will leverage this bad humour into a bitter sense of injustice which can, with care, protect them from the need to ever say anything remotely positive about the progress if their football club ever again.

Only one club will with the Blue Square South this year. One other club will win the playoffs for the second promotion berth. This means that out of the 22 clubs competing in the league, only 9% of them will have supporters satisfied with their lot. 81% of us are facing disappointment and heartbreak, yet the long odds do not sway us from doing the sensible thing: staying at home in the warm and dry confines of our sitting rooms. Each winter you will see us on the terraces in the cold and the rain cheering on our mid-table teams, taking confidence in the fact that they have not been mathematically eliminated yet. We are clearly nuts.

The good news for me and my fellow Bath City fans, though, is that it is plainly obvious that our club is a real dark horse. With a solid, experienced defense and several rumours of the manager signing a striker soon (hopefully), City have every chance of making the playoffs, even with our limited budget. If we go into the playoffs with a bit of form, we just might get that promotion spot and find ourselves in the Conference National. Or so I think. Don't you? Of course we will.

Rovers Return

When City's pre-season fixture list was announced the most attractive looking entry was tonight's meeting with Bristol Rovers. Not only are Rovers a League One team (three levels above Bath City) but they are also a local rival. There are close ties between City and Rovers as well, as Rovers were tennants at Twerton Park during most of the 90's after a fire destroyed most of their home ground. If nothing else, a big crowd of 'gasheads' (as Rovers fans are known) was expected.

Rovers' pre-season fixture list read rather differently from City's, though. They list Torquay United on 18 July, Cheltenham Town on 21 July, Crystal Palace on 24 July, and a Liverpool XI on 3 August. No mention of City, and matches with fellow league clubs Cheltenham and Palace right before and after our match. It became clear to everyone that the Bristol Rovers side that was going to show up at Twerton Park tonight would be made up of youth players and reserves.

So clear was it, in fact, that not many people showed up. The attendance was not to announced but I would guess 250 at the most. For me, after an absence from Twerton Park of nearly three months, I was just glad to be there and didn't really care who City was playing. The late July sun was shining bright when I arrived, and I celebrated the new season with a purchase of my first Bath City replica shirt. I wandered over to the 'popular side' terrace to watch the teams warm up and grab a cup of tea in a styrofoam cup from the 'tea bar.' Twerton Park has a wonderful view of the centre of Bath, and on a warm summer evening with the blue sky above and a nice cup of tea in hand, it is hard to beat.

Despite following football closely for a couple years now, I don't feel qualified to execute a decent match report on this blog. There are people who do it much better at the Bath Chronicle, and especially 'Kelstone Kopite' on the Bath City forum. Although with each match I am able to understand the intricacies of the play much better, large sections of play can still pass me by in a bit of a blur. I'm sure my 'vision' of the pitch will improve with time, but I really mean for this blog to be about being a football fan as much as about the football itself, so for now I'm going to stick to writing about being a fan.

The non-league experience is supposed to be more intimate, and tonight there were two such moments that I will remember especially. One was at the beginning of City's warm up session. Matt Coupe, one of our excellent defenders, gave me a friendly nod when he saw me standing in the terrace. Oh sure, I was the only fan there at the time, but it was not just a perfunctory nod. He recognized me. In all my years of following sports, I've never had a player on a team I've supported recognise me. Matt and I had had a short conversation last season before an away match against Eastleigh. He had noticed my accent and wondered how City had acquired an American fan. Not being used to talking to players, I was a bit tongue tied and must have come across like an inarticulate dork. I suppose even inarticulate dorks are memorable. Despite our conversation six months previously, I still was taken aback, and I instinctively looked behind me to see if he was nodding to someone else. Someday it may seem normal to be on acquaintance terms with the players, but I hope it does not happen too soon.

The second moment came at half-time. I bought a small portion of chips (fries) and was wandering over to my regular spot on the terrace. In the same general area one of the club directors I know named Phil was chatting to Ken Loach. Most Americans will not know Ken Loach, but he is a famous film director in Europe. He has won the Palm D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and he has recently released a very well received film called, 'Looking for Eric' about the legendary Manchester United player Eric Cantona. Ken is a dedicated City fan, and a former director himself. I see him at most matches, but I have always adopted an air of non-challance, as if I saw famous film directors on a regular basis and had grown bored with the concept. It is, of course, a complete act. So Phil and Ken are chatting and Phil waves at me and says hello and I wave back and then Ken waved at me too! Now, I really did not think that Ken Loach could be waving at me. Sure, he might have a vague recognition of me from seeing me on the terraces in previous matches, but it could be nothing more than that. I was so sure he could not be waving at me, in fact that I ignored him. There could be nothing more embarrassing than returning a wave of a famous film director that was meant for someone else. But then, Ken waved again! A bit tentatively, of course, because I had just ignored him, but there was no doubting it now. I said hello to him too. Then Phil took one of my chips, and so did Ken Loach! I shared my chips with Ken Loach! This required a brief hiatus so that I could text this information to several people I know.

This should not have been very surprising, really. By all reports Ken is a very kind and generous person. He has given City incredible support over the years. Last year he convinced Hollywood star Robert Carlyle to host an 'Evening with Robert Carlyle' in the clubhouse as a fundraiser, and just last month brought Eric Cantona (ERIC CANTONA!!!) to Twerton Park for a similar event. If he is going to do that, then he is the sort of nice guy who is going to say hello to a fellow fan, especially when we have both made the effort to turn up for a friendly against Rovers' reserve unit on a Wednesday night. Still, it made me a bit giddy.

The match itself was a very relaxing experience. For once, I was not worried about whether City won or lost. I was hoping to familiarise myself with the new signings, and hopefully get some reassurance that a good squad was coming together. The first half saw Rovers get two goals, both of them after City's defense had momentarily lost its shape. Other than those two lapses, City's defense held up well against the higher league opposition. There were some excellent tackles, especially from new signing Sido Jombarti. 'Sid' has a long legs that look too fragile for the rough and tumble of non-league play, but several times he effortlessly wound them around the ball from a prone position to relive a Rovers mid-fielder of the ball. He was probably the most impressive of the new players on the pitch, but there was a ex-Rovers veteran called Browning who showed a lot of leadership in mid-field and a promising looking local striker named Jamie Tayor, recently of the Swindon Town youth team. The second half began with a lot of substitutions and the balance of play shifted. In fact, City managed to mostly keep the ball in Rovers' half except for a few fast breaks. Actually scoring goals has a struggle for City in the last few seasons, and tonight was no exception. With only a few minutes of regular time left, though, returning striker Darren Edwards chipped the ball over the Rovers' keeper to give his team a respectable 2-1 scoreline. All in all, I, like most other City supporters I suspect, felt reassured by the performance of our team.

And Ken, if you are reading this, my name is Ned and you can have my chips any time!

Sven, Money, and Promotion

I had decided to write about David Beckham's encounter with abusive LA Galaxy fans today, but an announcement was made this afternoon that neatly encapsulates several trends in English football.

Reports emerged today that Sven Goran Eriksson, former manager of club teams Lazio and Manchester City, and national teams England and Mexico, may soon become the director of football for Nottingham County (aka Notts County) in League 2. Mr Eriksson is one of the most famous football managers in the world and he is being credibly linked with the team that finished 87th in English professional football last year. Is this a joke? No. In fact, despite there being no official comment some commentators are talking about the move as if it is a done deal. How can this be?

Six days ago a mysterious Middle Eastern consortium called 'Munto Finanace' finalised the purchase of Notts County. I say 'mysterious' because despite reports of prolific wealth, Munto Finance has not managed to produce a website (I would suspect that before the purchase of the midlands club it did not exist). So far they have designed a new logo for the club, and apparently, hired Sven. If you are a mysterious Middle Eastern consortium with loads of cash to spend, hiring Sven is a good way to make an initial splash. The question is, though, why would Munto Finance want to buy a club that two seasons ago was on the verge of being relegated to non-league football?

English football clubs have long been the playthings of wealthy Englishmen. The Premier League has become a global sports phenomenon since its inception in 1992, though, and now wealthy foreigners want one too. The first famous example of this was Roman Abromovich's purchase of Chelsea FC in 2003. Despite being one of the richest men in the world, and despite London filling up with rich Russians taking advantage of the UK tax regime, it was a bit of a surprise to the sports world to find that one of the most popular English clubs was suddenly Russian-owned. People worried that Mr Abromovich's oil wealth would be used to 'buy success' in the Premiership. It did - Chelsea won two titles in a row soon after his purchase. Chelsea fans didn't complain, and it did break up the duopoly of Arsenal and Manchester United that had ruled for the few years previously.

Before long, though, obscenely rich people from around the world began to want English football clubs as well. In 2007, Championship side Queens Park Rangers (QPR) were taken over by a consortium of Formula 1 tycoons and Steel magnates (including Lakshmi Mittal few people in the world with more money than Roman Abromovich). Suddenly Chelsea were the second richest club in English football. QPR did not hold the title for long. Just under a year ago mediocre Premiership club Manchester City was bought by Sheikh Mansoor bin Zayed Al Nahyan. You may not know him, but your car does. He is the emir of Abu Dhabi and you have been adding to his wealth every time you fill up your tank. He is so rich it is reported he funded the takeover of Man City with the money he found under the cushions in his sofa.

It now seems that if you are going to have any street cred the next time you play baccarat in Monte Carlo you need to have an English football club in your plaything portfolio. The problem is that not very many Premiership teams are for sale. Not to worry, though. Because of relegation and promotion, you can buy a team lower down and, providing the funds keep coming, spend your way into the Premiership. This is the stated goal of Munto Finanace. There is a touch of romance to this story as well. Notts County is the oldest professional club in the country. They are a founding member of the Football League, but were nearly ejected from it two years ago. Restoring the club to its former glory will make a great story and will certainly be more satisfying than the relatively easy success at Chelsea.

Hiring Sven, assuming it goes ahead, will show everyone they are serious. Every agent in the country will take a call from the ex-England manager. Reporters will listen to what he says. Players will be eager to play for his team. Sexy secretaries will be seduced by his bookish charm....ooh, wait, that's another blog post waiting to happen!

A generation ago fans dreamed of an unproven kid of exceptional ability being spotted by their team. Now fans dream of oil tycoons of whatever nationality buying their club. The trend seems to be to buy lower and lower ranked teams and build them up, so...... anyone interested in Bath City?

Why I am no longer a real cricket fan.

When I first came to live in England I found one of the most difficult adjustments to make was the lack of baseball. Oh sure, I missed my family and the food was different, but it was baseball that really hurt. It was not that baseball was inaccessible. I could get scores and even radio commentary from the newly emergent Internet. I could also stay up late and watch ESPN broadcasts on Channel 5 (although they did finish at about 4am). The problem was, though, after staggering into work with bloodshot eyes after staying up to 4am, I HAD to talk about it. Like an amputee who's missing leg still itched, I would reflexively start telling someone about the great double play, or squeeze bunt or something had happened on TV the night before and then realise, slowly, that they had no idea what I was talking about. Unless I was really lucky, they really didn't want to know either. Sometimes I would meet someone who was interested, and would humour me while I explained the infield fly rule to them. You can only get so much pleasure from talking to people who ignorant of the basic rules of the game, though. It was a great shock to me to realise it, but being a fan is a social experience. Following a baseball team had no joy if done in isolation.

And so, I turned to Cricket. The 1999 Cricket World Cup had just finished, and although the sport was a complete mystery to me, I was able to determine that cricket fans and baseball fans have a lot of similarities. Both sports are full of statistics, records, complicated rules, obscure strategies, history and tradition. Once I started to learn the rules, I found I really liked cricket. One morning I got up, as usual, at 6 am to eat my cornflakes. It was cold and miserable outside. Rain was beating against the kitchen windows. I turned on the radio and, to my utter joy, was able to hear the commentary of England playing Sri Lanka in a beautiful tropical setting. I listened every morning of that test match. By the end I was hooked.

Soon I had a shelf full of Wisden's Cricketers Almanacks and a new radio that with a long wave band so that I could listen to Test Match Special. I went to any match I could anywhere, from villiage teams to an England vs Australia One Day International. I went to two matches at Lords (the home of cricket) and once at one of these matches explained the Duckworth - Lewis scoring method to an English person. During the 2002-03 Ashes series in Australia I listened through the night to every test match. I would stagger into work each morning after with bloodshot eyes, of course, but I was not the only one.

Cricket itself is a fantastic sport, and I still retain my fascination with the intricacies of the game, but.............. being a cricket fan is not easy.

I do not mean the sort of 'not easy' you run into as a non-league football supporter. I'm not talking about hardship. I am talking about logistical difficulty.

There is precious little cricket on television unless you subscribe to Sky. When I first began to follow cricket most home England test matches were on Channel 4, and some domestic one-day matches were as well. So, I did at least get to see cricket played in the summer months. Going to matches was not easy though. At the time, the shortest version of Cricket was the 50 over match. This was short compared to the five day test match, but it still would take six to seven hours. Once I had children convincing the wife that I should miss an entire day's childcare to see some cricket was hard to do. I did not want to just follow England, so I adopted Goucestershire as my county club. I soon learned, though, that in order to follow them with any regularity I was going to need to become unemployed. I got to a couple matches, but mostly I had to just read about my team in short articles in the paper each morning. Even radio coverage of domestic cricket is hard to get. Although I loved Cricket there were times when my status as a 'fan' seemed mostly theoretical.

Then, a few years ago, the English Cricket Board signed a very lucritive television deal with Sky Sports. I do not have a subscription to Sky. In order to get Sky and feel like I was getting good value from it I would need to watch a lot more television than I do now. I am not going to subscribe just to get Cricket. Slowly, over time, my attatchement to even the England team became more and more tenuous. One night, while listening to the Test Match Special commentary, I realised I no longer even knew what several of the players looked like. I knew their names, but they could have passed me in the street without me even realising I had missed an autograph opportunity. I did not mean for it to happen, but my love for cricket began to wither. I do not feel guilty about it. I feel like cricket gave up on me, actually.

I have not given up on cricket entirely, though. I still follow it from a distance. I have so far listened to both of the Ashes tests so far this summer and am enjoying seeing Australia come unstuck. But, so far, I have only been reading the paper and listening on the radio.

After a short period in the sporting wilderness I discovered Bath City. I didn't think I liked football before I went to my first Bath City match. I thought it was crass and ruined by too much money. I know now that only the Premiership is crass and ruined by too much money (but like Dallas, can be fun to watch from the distance). I have never looked back.

Just what is Non-League football, anyway?

The first time I came across the term, 'non-league' football was in a newsagent in a London train station. There was a book called The Supporter's Guide to Non-League Football for sale in the book section and I can remember thinking how strange that sounded. I assumed that 'non-league' must refer to barnstorming teams that roamed the country looking for pick-up games on village greens. Or maybe they were teams made of rugged individualists who could just about stomach the discipline of playing a team sport, but drew the line when it came to working under a league structure. Whatever it was, it sounded a strange thing to write a guide for and an even stranger thing to buy a guide for.

The confusion for me was over the term 'league.' In football (and only in football - in Rugby it has an entirely different connotation) 'league' football is fully professional football. This term derives from the Football League, which up until the early nineties was the sole governing body for fully professional football teams in England. There were 92 teams in the Football League spread over four divisions, and if you were not one of these 92 teams then you were at best semi-professional and by definition, 'non-league.' Things have gotten more confusing since then. In 1992 the top division of the Football League (the first division) broke away and formed the Premier League. Although no longer technically part of the Football League the teams in the Premier League are still considered 'league' teams in the colloquial sense. Not long afterwards a formal agreement was made which allowed the two best non-league teams to join the bottom division of the league, and the two worst teams in the league to be relegated to non-league. This means there are now a dozen or so clubs with long league histories playing in non-league football. A few have gone part-time, but most have remained fully professional clubs with full-time players hoping to regain their league status with each new season.

Whew! I could keep going on this, but I'll take a break and talk about what non-league football is really all about.

Non-league football is a bit like minor league baseball. It is a more intimate, and less expensive option than a top division club. After that the similarities break down. Unlike minor league baseball teams, the clubs are all completely independent. They do not rely on a parent club to supply players, coaches or equipment. Bath City players are contracted to play for Bath City only. They cannot be 'called up.' They can be signed by a bigger club, but only if the bigger club pays Bath City a mutually agreed transfer fee. Also, because of relegation and promotion, Bath City could, in theory, be playing in the top division in five years time. It is ludicrously unlikely to happen, however the mere existence of the possibility keeps non-league supporters like me dreaming of it happening more than we will admit to. The dream, no matter how far fetched, can make you extremely devoted to your club.

Oh sure, there is plenty of devotion and loyalty at all levels of English football. I'm sure that when Man U fans shell out £931 for their season ticket this year they are certainly showing a lot of devotion, but that's not what I'm talking about. Man U fans have a very realistic chance of watching their team win at least one title, probably more, for their £931. Even if by some freakish luck United were frozen out in all competitions then at least you would see some high quality football (and no doubt complain endlessly to anyone who would listen how hard done you were because your team had not won anything).


Non-league fans are on the road less-travelled, though. Non-league fans ride on coaches with other non-league fans to go stand in the bitter cold and rain among a crowd in the low hundreds to watch football of sometimes dubious quality, and do it with a smile on their face. Premiership fans moan when their club doesn't win the title or gets relagated to the Championship, but non-league fans dance for joy when their club is promoted to a league no one else has ever heard of. If you like things nice and easy, clean and comfortable, smooth and professional, then you won't like non-league. It is for people who are can be truly dedicated to something just for the sake of being truly dedicated to something. It is for people who will show utter love and devotion for an institution that will never fuful their dreams. It is, to be honest, a rather polite and gentle form of masochism. If Robert Kipling was still alive today he would add an extra paragraph to 'If' about non-league football fans.

Non-league football is also incredibly English. It is the most English thing I have come across in my ten years in England. It is so English that few English people can actually bear it. I will talk about this more later.

Dictionary of British Sports Terms

Since I'm hoping to have readers from both sides of the Atlantic reading this blog, I figure I had better explain some British sports terms. I've been living here long enough now that I use the British ones without realising it, so please bear with me if you find some descriptions hard to follow.

The good news is that most British terms have an American equivalent. There are only a few new concepts to learn.

I imagine it will take a while to think of all of these, so I will update this post as time goes on.


Pitch: Field. Used in football, rugby and cricket. In Cricket it can, confusingly, also mean the narrow strip of ground that the bowling and batting takes place on.

Fixture: Game. This term is used more when you are speaking of schedules. A team's schedule is called a 'fixture list.'

Match: Game. This is used to refer to a specific game.

League: This term has several meanings but in football it usually refers to the level a club competes at. For Bath City the 'league' refers to the Blue Square South (aka Conference South). A 'league' match is a match that is part of league competition (as opposed to Cup competitions). In a very confusing twist, 'the league' also refers to the Football League. This is a subset of the Football Association including the top four divisions of national football in England. Bath City is a 'non-league' club because it competes two levels below the lowest level of 'league' football.

Premiership: This is the standard term for the Premier League, which is the top level of English football. Don't be confused by ESPN commentators referring to it as the 'EPL.' Nobody in England calls it that, or ever says 'English Premier League.' It is not normal for any organisation name to begin with 'English' or 'British' the way American organisation names begin with 'American' or 'National.' It has something to do with the empire or something. Go figure.

Championship: This is the second level of English football. No, really. It is. Weird, huh? So, when you read, 'Wolves won the Championship last year,' what this really means is that Wolverhampton Wanderers won the second division and are therefore promoted out of the Championship to the Premiership. This has nothing to do with the empire. It is a marketing ploy.

League 1: The third level of English football. Yes, yes, I know how bizarre that is. Now you see what I put up with living here. Everything is like this here. Why have a straightforward naming system when you can have something confusing and eccentric.

League 2: Okay, by now you have probably guessed this is the fourth level of English football and may be beginning to understand why. This is progress. Well done. This is also the lowest league in 'league' football.

Conference: The fifth level of English football. It has nothing to do with college sports. This is the top level of 'non-league' football and the lowest league played on a national level. Everything below this is regional. For Luton Town, Cambridge United, Oxford United, and Wrexham, being in the Conference is purgatory. For Bath City it would be the most amazing thing ever.

Conference South: The sixth level of English football. It is pretty self explanatory and I won't bore you with a separate entry for Conference North. There are about seven levels below this one in 'non-league' depending on what part of the country you are in.

Cup: A trophy of any type, and also a knock-out tournament. Most sports in Europe have both a league competition and at least one Cup competition. It is, therefore, entirely possible for a team to have a great season in the league and a horrible one in the various cups. Bath City will compete in at least three cup competitions this year (the FA Cup, the FA Trophy, and the Somerset Premier Cup). Last year they were also in the Setanta Sheild, but Setanta Sports has just gone bankrupt and it isn't clear if there will be a replacement. Other than the FA Cup, and to some extent the FA Trophy, most fans think of cup matches as being less important than league matches.

Club: Team, but not a national team. I know that the term 'club' is used in America occasionally, especially in baseball, but in the UK it is the main term. In the UK a 'club' can be comprised of several 'teams,' so for example Arsenal Football Club can have a senior team, a reserve team, a youth team and a women's team. A national team, like England, is never referred to as a 'club.'

Result: While in America this means just what happened, in Britain a game with a 'result' is a game that did not end in a tie or a draw. While a tie is considered inherantly unsatisfactory in American Sports, it can be as good as a victory in football and all other British sports. Most football fans would consider a 4-4 draw an excellent game without knowing much more than the scoreline. For a weaker team facing an intimidating opponent, trying for a draw is not seen as dishonourable as it can be in American sports.

Sport: used the way Americans say 'sports.' It sounds weird but in the UK you can say, 'I like sport,' and you are not infringing any rules of grammar. Strangely, you are not bad at math, you are bad at maths. Why one is plural and another isn't is a mystery to me. Also, the Sport is a daily tabloid that is more to do with pornographry and not really anything to do with sports. Don't make the mistake a friend of mine made and pick it up at the newstand in front of your wife looking for an insight into British sporting life.

Keeper: what Americans call a 'goalie' in soccer. Soon there may be a shift to the American term as there are now four 1st string keepers with American passports ( Howard - Everton, Friedal - Aston Villa, Myhill (Hull City), and Hahnemann - Wolves), while the only English keeper of note in the entire Premiership is the inconsistant David James.

Kit: uniform or equipment, or both. Dedicated fans wear 'replica kits' to matches.

Rounders: an English sport played by schoolgirls which bears a superficial resemblance to baseball. It is an important term to learn because any time you run into any time you mention baseball in England in front of someone even slightly anti-American they will bring it up.

The Neverending Season

The football season never really ends. This has taken some adjusting to in my second year as a football supporter. Growing up as a sports fan in America meant changing sports every few months as one season ended and another one began. Oh sure, they sometimes overlap, but no season lasts more than seven months. Baseball begins in Spring and finishes in Autumn, (American) Football begins in early Autumn and finishes in late Winter, and Basketball begins in late Autumn and finishes in early Summer. Die hard baseball fans will still follow football and basketball, even if their level of interest does not match that of their favourite sport. What else are they going to do for five months of the year? As a result, most sports fans are just that: sports fans. They might have one sport they prefer over others, they might follow college basketball but not really take much interest in the NBA. It is rare, though, to meet someone who only watches one sport. I'm sure there are some people out there like that, but to spurn one of the major sports entirely would come across as peculiar, and perhaps anti-social. [Please note: I cannot speak for hockey. I would not be surprised if most hockey fans only follow hockey as in order to follow hockey you need to be either a bit strange, Canadian, or perhaps, both.]

Not so in Britain! It took eight years of living in Britain before I finally got the football bug. A lot of things put me off, which I will discuss another time, but once you have it you can gorge yourself virtually without a break year round. My team, Bath City, finished its season in late April. Bath City play in the lower English leagues (six levels down from the top) and the season finishes earlier than for the top leagues. The Premiership season finished a month later, with the FA Cup, the traditional end of season fixture, taking place on 30 May. A mere 39 days later, Bath City had their first pre-season friendly against Cirencester Town (they lost - but pre-season friendlies don't really matter).

39 days without football?! You might wonder how a dedicated football fan can survive such sensory deprivation for so long, but if you wonder that then you really have never experienced the English 'closed' season. Nothing closes for real. First of all, the player transfer market gets as much or more coverage as the regular season of most other sports. Unless something really remarkable is happening (like England beating Australia in a cricket test) the back page of your favourite newspaper is more likely to feature an article about whether John Terry will move to Manchester City or who will be shoring up the defence at Spurs. And wait! There is still a lot of football played in this supposedly 'closed' season. South Africa has hosted a two-week tournament called the 'Confederations Cup' (the USA made the finals) and England have played two World Cup qualifiers. And speaking of the World Cup, next year the entire 'closed' season will be taken up with that, so there really will be no stop to football at all. If anything the excitement and coverage will be at its peak after this year's season finishes. Two years after that there will be the European championships (almost as big as the World Cup) that will also fill the gap that summer, so in actual fact there is only a 39 day gap every other year. And that 39 day gap, when it does come, is full of football anyway.

Football never stops. In fact, if FIFA had any control over the matter, I'm sure they would like to add an extra month or two to the twelve standard calandar months we have now just to fit in a few more fixtures.

This creates a real dichotomy in the world of British sports fans. There are football fans, who have very little time for anything else, and then there are the people at the margins who follow other sports. Oh sure, there are a very few people who follow all sports. I know some Bath City fans who stroll down to the Rec when City are away to watch Bath Rugby, and who can speak intelligently about cricket and Formula 1, but these are rare beasts. You would not feel comfortable in a conversation switching subjects from Bath City football to Somerset cricket without checking first to see if the person you were speaking to followed cricket. In America, if you were discussing the merits of the Dodgers starting pitching rotation with someone, you would not inquire if they knew much about basketball before talking about the Lakers. It would be insulting. It would be like asking someone if they could read before you discussed a book you had recently enjoyed.

Speaking of reading, if you have read thus far then maybe you might want to look out for further posts. I will be talking about my experiences as a Bath City fan in the upcoming season and explaining the differences between British and American sports. Stick around!

An Introduction to Bath City FC

Bath City is the greatest football club in the whole world. I think so, anyway. This article is to help people who have been disadvantaged by never having come in contact with Bath City before. It will explain just what the club is first, and then afterwards, why it is so great to be a Bath City supporter.

First of all, it is possible some of the international readers of this blog might not know where Bath is. It is a city in the west of England, not something to relax in before bedtime. It is, I believe, one of the nicest places to live in the UK (as long as you don't want to drive anywhere). Bath is a 'World Heritage Site' too which means that lots of tourists come here. If you have not been to Bath yourself you probably know someone else who has. Although the tourist trail in Bath takes in most of the prominent sites, including the Royal Crescent, Bath Abbey, the Theatre Royal, etc, it does not yet, unfortunately, take in Twerton Park. We are trying to change this.

Bath City FC is a 'non-league' football club (for a fuller explanation of the term 'non-league' click here) that can trace its history as far back as 1889. 'Trace' is perhaps too strong a word here because really the club started in 1900. There was a club called Bath AFC formed in 1889 but they gave up football and went back to playing rugby after three chaotic seasons. Eight years after Bath AFC folded a totally different group of people set up 'Bath City AFC.' Still, it sounds better to claim City began in 1889, so that is often the date you often see.

The early years of the club were spent in the Western League (currently known as the 'Toolstation League' for sponsorship reasons). In the 1920s it moved up to the Southern League (currently known as the 'Zamaretto League' for really daft sponsorship reasons) and in the 1970s into the forerunner of the National Conference. In the mid-90s the club was relegated back into the Southern League until it finally escaped back into the new 'Conference South' after the championship season of 2007 (if you are not interested in the intricacies of the non-league pyramid hopefully you skipped this paragraph). In a nutshell, City are historically a very important non-league side but have never made it, even briefly, into the Football League. Give us a couple more years.

Bath City have played their home matches at Twerton Park since 1930. It originally consisted of 'two houses and an orchard with a field at the rear' Twerton Park is considered by today's standard an 'old-fashioned' ground because it has large covered terraces (places with no seats where everyone stands) and because it is not bland and boring like most modern non-league grounds today (e.g. Eastleigh's Silverlake Stadium). Although it can appear a bit battered around the edges in places, and some of the concrete is a bit wonky, Twerton Park is a lovely place to spend your Saturday afternoons. It has, perhaps, one of the most spectacular views in football. Current capacity is listed as 8,840 (including 1,026 seats), but the highest attendance ever was 18,020 for a FA Cup fixture in 1959.

Even though Bath City has never played at the top level of English football, it has produced plenty of heroes, past and present. Here are some of the most well known:

Charlie Fleming was a Scottish international who came to Bath City in 1958 after three years at Sunderland. He scored 208 goals for City in only seven seasons, including an amazing 57 goals in the 1958-1959 campaign. He led City to its first Southern League title in his second year with the club. The main club bar is named 'Charlie's' in his honour.

A credit to bearded men everywhere, Paul Randall joined City from rivals Yeoville Town in 1989. After helping them earn promotion back to the National Conference the following year, Randall went on to score an 112 goals in only four campaigns. Another club bar has been named 'Randall's' in his honour.

There aren't any more bars to name after anyone else.

In 1986 a young Jason Dodd joined the City youth program, working his way onto the senior team within two years. He played his last match in December 1988, leaving City for a long career at Southampton. There he made an astonishing 454 first team appearances in all competitions. He finished his career back in non-league playing for City rivals Eastleigh. So far as I can find out nobody has named a bar after him yet.

In 2000 City took a player on loan from Bristol Rovers named Bobby Zamora. This was the turning point in young Bobby's career (at least we think so anyway), because after scoring eight goals for City in only six games he was snapped up by Brighton & Hove Albion. His stint at City gave him enough confidence to break into the Premier League by 2003 (where he now plays for Fulham) and the Trinidad & Tobago national team. If you just imagine black stripes on his kit here this is what he looked like at Twerton Park. If he ever comes back to Bath City we will definately find another bar to name after him.

Eric Cantona never played for Bath City, but I'm hoping there are people out there who skip the text and only look at the pictures.

There are plenty of heroes in the current squad as well. If you want to learn about them you will need to read my posts as each game is played. I do mean heroes, though, because you will be hard pressed to find a group of players in any sport that play with as much passion, determination and grit as Bath City (and I really mean that!). This leads me on to the topic of why it is so great to be a Bath City supporter.

During my years growing up in America I became accustomed to watching sport played at the highest level by superstars who were completely inaccessible. Later, when I discovered minor league baseball, I was taken by how close you could get to the game and how much more human the players seemed. There is a flaw with minor league sports in America, though, and that is that ultimately no one really cares about them. These leagues exist only to provide a training environment for future major league players. The players do not care if their team wins or loses as long as their individual performance is good enough to get them to the next level. Once the 'parent' club who pays a player's wages loses faith in him, he is shown the exit. No one plays for the love of the game in the minors.

Non-league football is not, by this definition, minor league. Bath City play to win. Individual performances are important only inasmuch as they contribute to the good of the team. There is no parent club feeding players to City; the club fends for itself. Because of the opportunity for promotion to higher leagues there is no theoretical obstacle to City making it to the Premiership one day (several other non-league clubs have). Every win is a very small step towards this goal, and as a result every defeat is felt painfully.

When you come to a City match you can stand within a few feet of the pitch. You will be able to see the expressions on the players' faces and hear them curse when they mistime a pass. You can throw them the ball when it goes out of play and you can almost feel the impact of boot to ball on corner kicks if you stand in the right place.

You will also meet supporters who live and die with each result. You will meet people who have not missed a City match, home or away, for years. You will meet people who came to their first City match over forty years ago, and you will meet people whose grandfathers helped dig the pitch at Twerton Park over seventy-five years ago. You will meet people who toil and sweat in their own free time to keep the club running day to day and have nothing to gain from it at all except the joy of shared experience and the bittersweet hope for a victory next Saturday. What's more, if you care to don a City scarf you will meet people who will greet you as a long lost friend, even if you are only a recent arrival. I know because this has happened to me.

If you ever find yourself within driving distance of Twerton Park on a match day do not miss the opportunity to come and say hello. You will not regret it.