Better To Have Travelled And Lost Than Not to Have Travelled At All

Bath City were away to Dover yesterday, where they lost 2-1 in heartbreaking fashion. I was not there to see it, due to two main reasons: the Dover Athletic fixture is the farthest away of the season, and Mrs Nedved had an important work event over this weekend. Bringing both boys with me on a nine and a half hour round trip wasn't feasible (although this did not stop the supporter club chairman, Powell, from trying to convince Little Nedved Junior to 'ask Daddy to take him to the seaside on the supporters coach' during half time at the Lewes match).

As a result I had to follow the match online through a combination of Sean's 'City Update' site and posts on the Bath City forum. Sitting in front of a computer screen for two hours waiting for brief bits of text to either send me into rapture or despair has always seemed a very antisocial sort of activity. In normal society this sort of behaviour is a sign that someone has become a bit too involved in some Internet community, and perhaps it is time for concerned family members to stage an 'intervention.' For non-league fans it is just the normal routine of away matches, and, as far as we are concerned, perhaps it is time for concerned family members to stop bugging us and go do something else quietly in a far away place!

I'm not really that bad (yet). Because I am a kind and gracious sort of person I offered to let Big Nedved Junior play computer games on one window of the computer with the understanding that every so often Daddy is allowed to check the City score in the other window. This is amicably agreed to and is probably healthier for me as well. Despite the odd bit of pacing I did managed to go several minutes once without worrying about the score.

A good match summary of what happened, written by Kelston Kopite, can be found here. In a nutshell, my two hours went like this: worry because of the unusual lineup brought on by the injury crisis, slight hope after City managed to keep Dover from scoring in the first half, a mad dash to the church hall during halftime to pick up Little Nedved Junior from yet another birthday party, an inevitable seeming sense of disappointment after Dover did manage a goal at 51 minutes, absolute elation when the news came through that Edwards had chipped in a goal in the 91st minute, and then confusion, frustration and unfocused anger after the message from Sean came in saying Dover had won the match in the last few seconds.

Before the match hardly anyone thought that City's chances were good. Dover were top of the league and City were in the grip of an unrelenting run of injuries. The only thing that gave City fans any real hope at all was the scrappy determination City's players have demonstrated over the last few seasons when playing good teams away from home. By all accounts the City players did deliver in this respect. Actually taking a point from this match had been beyond my wildest dreams. Needless to say, Edwards' goal had me dancing around the sitting room. Losing from that position made the pain a lot worse than it would have been. There had not even been enough time between the good news and the bad news for Big Nedved Junior to roll his eyes and say, 'Daddy, please!'

After losing the match so dramatically, a long coach journey home faced both players and fans. There would have been more than enough time to work though the shock, denial, and acceptance they all must have been feeling. I suppose I should have been grateful that I did not have to endure this myself. I should have been grateful that I had not expended precious brownie points on an away match that ended in heartbreak. But, surprisingly, even to myself, that is not how I feel.

Losing away does hurt, but missing a match entirely is its own form of loss. Let's face it, non-league fans are not in it for the glory. Glory, or what passes for it, can be obtained quickly, easily, and cheaply for the price of a replica Man U shirt and an afternoon pint of lager at a pub with a Sky Sports subscription. Being a non-league fan is about an experience. It is an experience with at least as much disappointment as exhilaration. It is not meant to be easy and it certainly is not always enjoyable (why we are crazy enough to engage in such an unpromising activity is another question - but for now we will just accept that we do).

Not being there means not having seen Lewis Hogg have a great performance out of his natural position. It means not having seen Florin Pelecaci play his first game in a Bath City shirt. It means not having watched Darren Edwards cock his ear at the Dover fans after he brought his team within sight of a precious away point. It means not watching the City players devastated by the unexpected defeat, and mostly it means not having shared this experience with them.

All seasons have highs and lows. This match has made me realise how much I want to experience both. Even when (maybe especially when) it hurts.

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.

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!