As we’ve got another quiet buildup ahead this week – where things look, well, normal – your editor decided to take a step back in time and go to Aldershot v Woking yesterday.
There were quite a few reasons for that. It got me out of the house for a start. It was one of those rare footballing days where one could go to a game and not worry about what we were doing (99.99% of you), or indeed going there for work (me).
It is quite ironic that over the weekend we had an article in the programme about non-league football, about how we can appreciate it but never go back to it. Ditto your editor finding himself near Sandhurst’s ground.
And almost by co-incidence, there was a full programme of non-league football on yesterday.
Judging by the sound of it, a smattering of bored Wombles made their way to various backwaters. Ks were at KM against the Axewounds, and according to one eyewitness if that’s Turdeyland at its best then they’d hate to see the worst of it.
There was the RPV v Colliers Wood grudge match, the Walton derby, and T&M were at home too. None of those had any sort of appeal though, and I think I’ve got to the stage where I just can’t watch that level of football these days.
And I suspect that’s true of most of our fans, too.
Why? It really is an aquired taste, and you do have to be “into” non-league to get pleasure from it. It served a purpose for us when we were in it, but as attendances for Senior Cup games demonstrate, it’s not what floats our vessel any more.
Still, Shots v Woking had something about it, and it was off to the site of the game that may have been more important than we now realise. It still felt nervewracking reading that even now, so fuck knows what it was like to go through it at the time.
First things first – it was £17 to get in. Yes, that is a pisstake, and you can forgive anyone who decides not to pay it. Hell, I think it’s a little bit steep for League Two, let alone anything lower.
Though as a few of you will now be saying, it’s not like I pay to get in most of the time 😉
The real reason for the trip down to Hampshire yesterday, and in truth the reason for this update, is a little reminder for us all. Even as we’re still, ahem, buzzing from coming back against Scunny, it doesn’t hurt to step back in time once in a while.
Yesterday, we could have been playing Woking. After many occasions last season, we should have been playing them on August Bank Holiday, 2013.
It was a decent enough game, and contests with a bit of needle are always good fun, but I don’t miss watching that level of football. I hope that various people at the club take the odd trip to these sort of fixtures, and get reminded of what awaits them if they fail to properly plan for our success as a League club.
You forget how much better League Two is skill-wise, and Scunny/yesterday bought that home. True, Woking are struggling although Shots are a better side than their position suggests.
But you could see how much more “basic” it was, and how some of the ball control and misplaced passes wouldn’t be tolerated for long in even our games.
That was us once, of course, and we all know how close we came to it being us again. But the other big thing that struck me from the trip to the Recreation Ground was this – I think had we gone down we would have found it much more difficult to readjust.
One sensed with Aldershot fans that they were glad to have their club existing again. They may simply be at their natural level again these days, although in a good season they may find themselves back in the Football League.
But they seem to know this and accept it in a way I don’t think we ever could now.
A case in point. Your editor saw a certain AFCW supporting journo who works for a certain national non-league paper giving away free copies of that weekend’s publication before the game.
Cheekily, his sales patter was “one of the good things about being back in the Conference is that you can buy the NLP again”. And Shots fans seemed quite happy to take the paper. We both agreed that if it was our fans being offered that, he would have been told more often than not to stick it up his arse.
We knew it anyway, but it confirmed how much we’d hate being back there again. I don’t think our pride, ego and general disposition would let us.
Out of necessity, we would have readjusted to it. And playing Luton and Wrexham again would have soften that fall from grace. But imagine your reaction the first time you were reminded by opposition fans about being back in non-league, as Woking fans did…
It’s OK, you can stop shaking in fright now. It’s hypothetical.
It might be just one division below us, but it would be too “low” for us these days. When Kevin Borras wrote his article on Saturday, he could have easily written about going to places like Hyde and Nuneaton as much as Feltham and Merstham.
There’s always that danger each season of the trap door looming, unless we actually did find ourselves in League One, but Aldershot helpfully went through it and let us know what it’s like…
A couple of other thoughts : Aldershot seem to be out of danger as a club now, barring an unforseen black hole in their accounts. There’s a sense of togetherness again after their tribulations of the last year.
Their fanbase is different to ours – they have as many old duffers and young punks as we do, but they don’t have that in-between type of support that we have in abundance – the one that arguably drives the club onwards.
They did do a good idea for their bar area – if they won, there was 50p off the post-game drink at their club bar. A good way of keeping punters in the ground afterwards and capitalising on the football equivalent of the post-coital ciggie.
I’m sure AFCW will think about it, although they’re more likely to put 50p on a pint of post-match beer. And then snottily tell fans they’re not spending enough in the bars…
Finally, remember this kid we were linked with in the summer? He went to Aldershot in the end, and to be honest I’m glad they got him and not us. He didn’t exactly stand out, and I’d rather have Porter than him.
Maybe Brentford felt he was of Conference level rather than League Two? Quite simply, I’m glad we never had to find out…