www.altyfans.co.uk

Oh well we still have Booths in Hale Barnes....

No longer, it's closed down.

What was the attendance?

The silence from the club is deafening. The moving of home fans needs to stop now.

Is there any way of getting our money back as what we initially invested in isn't going to happen?

Don't think it helps that the sound varies depending where you're standing. It was very loud on the popular side for example.

Article in The Athletic featuring quotes from Bill Waterson.

https://theathletic.com/2943033/2021/11/14/the-national-league-is-now-richer-and-more-competitive-than-ever/

“I feel that the National League should now be part of the Football League, 100 per cent. In my opinion, it is a third division.”

Torquay United manager Gary Johnson might have a point.

This season, the National League is more competitive than ever. A total of 11 out of 23 teams in the division are former EFL clubs and even more could realistically have a shot at promotion this season. The league boasts last season’s League Two top scorer, a former League One club captain still playing at that level as recently as the start of October and, of course, the small matter of a couple of Hollywood stars taking over one of the country’s most historic clubs.

Automatic promotion is reserved for only one team, who will be joined in the EFL by the winner of a three-round play-off system. Money does not guarantee success but having it — or being smart with it — is more important than ever at the summit of the non-League system.

So how hard is it to compete in what is fast becoming the toughest league in the country?

Under grey skies and with the BT Sport cameras rolling at Edgeley Park, excitement is building as Stockport County prepare to host Bromley in a crucial game for two teams aiming for promotion this season. New manager Dave Challinor prowls his technical area as he prepares for his first league game as Stockport manager, having left League Two Hartlepool United earlier this month where he won promotion last season.

It was a head-scratching move to many but Challinor is a familiar face at Stockport having spent two years at the club as a player and club captain, and is ready for another crack at the National League. As impressive as his arrival is, he is overshadowed by an even more surprising move to County in the last few months — midfielder Antoni Sarcevic is named in the starting XI. Sarcevic was captain at Bolton Wanderers until he joined Stockport on a free transfer last month after a rumoured fallout with manager Ian Evatt.

Throughout the league, big moves have become commonplace. Paul Mullin, last season’s top scorer in League Two with Cambridge United, is now at Wrexham, along with Ben Tozer, who also won promotion from the fourth tier last season at Cheltenham. Former Birmingham City and Aberdeen striker Adam Rooney is now at Solihull Moors; Chesterfield held off fierce EFL competition to land Boreham Wood’s Kabongo Tshimanga; Paddy Madden swapped Fleetwood Town for Stockport.

It makes for a competitive division, which many believe creates a more entertaining product, even amid fears elsewhere in football that the National League could soon become a rival for League Two when it comes to wages. The lines, it seems, are blurring. More players are choosing to leave the EFL without seeing it as a step down.

“The gap is closer than it has ever been,” Scott Wiseman, who left League Two Chesterfield for Salford City and was subsequently promoted to the EFL in 2019, tells The Athletic. “In a lot of ways, the National League is tougher than League Two. Fans associate dropping into that league as having an easier time when it’s quite the opposite.

“You can have all the love for a club but if you cannot afford to pay your mortgage on the wages offered, then it’s just not viable. The same goes for location — if your young family is in the north and a southern team comes in for you then a move may not be possible.
“For most players, especially experienced ones, moving to a new club, the timing has to be right. If someone from a league above offers higher wages, no one bats an eyelid, but if they do from the league below, it raises eyebrows. When I moved to Salford I could have stayed in League Two at a mid-table club but I took the same money at a league below and loved every minute. Getting older, as much as being financially stable is important, what you’re also searching for are memories and success.”

“Money talks more than you might think,” says Bill Waterson, co-chairman of Altrincham. “That’s not unreasonable given that players have a very short playing career so they can’t afford to be altruistic. They have to maximise their earnings and it’s difficult to argue with that.”

Altrincham have been in the National League since the start of last season after winning the play-offs to land a return to the top tier of non-League after a five-year absence. They have a proud history outside the country’s top four leagues but since their return to this level last season, the gaps that have opened up within the league have grown more obvious.

“There are three types of club in the National League — the big clubs relying on the momentum of averaging over 5,000 spectators,” Waterson says. “There are the ambitious clubs that are not traditionally Football League clubs but have a big-money backer and are working their way up the pyramid. Then, there are those who don’t feel they can compete.

“The jump from one to another is quite substantial, as we are finding now trying to go from a club aiming to avoid the relegation zone to one challenging at the top. There is a chunk of clubs towards the bottom of the table who are biding their time. That’s an operating model which is, ‘Don’t worry about us, we’re just passing through’.

“We’re counting up to 50 points, so looking down rather than up in terms of what we expect to do this season, but our ambition is to be one of those smaller clubs competing with those traditionally bigger clubs. It’s about attitude as much as anything.”

Spending money does not guarantee success in football and nowhere is that truer than in the National League. Waterson points out Sutton United’s steady progress to win the league last season as well as similar stories in past years at Macclesfield and Barrow. For all their investment, Wrexham and Stockport are yet to really get going this season, sitting ninth and 11th respectively in the table following the weekend’s fixtures.

In the match against Bromley, County start well and cause problems although clearcut chances are hard to come by in the opening 45 minutes. The crowd at Edgeley Park are buoyed by their recent 2-2 draw away at Bolton in the FA Cup which has set up a mouthwatering midweek replay at home on Wednesday night — a solid start for Challinor’s reign as manager.

The home side take the lead early in the second half through a deft finish from Scott Quigley, twisting and turning on the edge of the box before side-footing his shot past Mark Cousins. Bromley threaten but Stockport hold strong and snatch at a few chances that they should score, Challinor only pausing from his prowl of the technical area to wave at the request of the County faithful.

Then the inconceivable happens — Bromley equalise with 30 seconds of normal time left via an own goal from a goalmouth scramble. The result is tough for County to take, although a draw is probably a fair reflection of the game as a whole.

Stockport are perceived as the league’s big spenders this season, but neither County nor Wrexham have benefited from the EFL parachute payments paid to teams relegated from League Two in the previous two years. That windfall, which is believed to total more than £700,000 per club, alters the financial make-up of the league.

Challinor’s feeling that “any team in this league in the top 10 would be, not comfortable, but would be able to go head to head with a League Two team” reflects the growing feeling that the gap between the divisions is closer than ever.

“It’s a really tough division and it gets tougher every year but we love the challenge,” Maidenhead United chairman Peter Griffin tells The Athletic. “We don’t have the budget of many, if not all other clubs in the division, we’re still part-time and we try our best. We know we’ll be beaten to players if it comes down to money. We have to look at how we can offer something different.

“Over the years, the spending rules at National League level have kept clubs quite stable. The problem we have is the Football League parachute payments will be bigger than our entire wage budget full stop. So those two who have come down and the two who are in the second year of the payments, assuming they haven’t gone back up, skew things in terms of wages and there’s no hope in trying to compete with that.”

The parachute payments are thought to be around £470,000 in the first year following relegation and an estimated £235,000 in the second year, which will influence spending. Southend United and Grimsby Town will benefit from their first year of payments after they were relegated last season.

But it is not guaranteed that those sides will spend that cash as a growing group try to keep pace. National League rules allow clubs to spend in relation to their income as long as they see proof of playing budget for the season and clubs show a commitment to cover any losses either through “non-returnable” means such as additional revenue via sponsorship or “gifted” money from owners.

Change could be on the cards, however, with a salary cap discussed at the most recent National League AGM, which prompted the creation of a group to look at amending the rules. Despite the gap between both of their playing budgets from those pushing at the top of the league, Altrincham’s Waterson and Maidenhead’s Griffin feel a salary cap would be detrimental to the league and the spirit of competition that they see as a challenge to embrace.

Both chairmen point out that while they keep an eye on the relegation zone until safety is confirmed, nothing is out of the question for clubs of their ilk if they can “sneak into the play-offs”.

“It makes for an interesting league. We don’t want everyone to be really regimental in what they are spending,” says Griffin. “There are pressures that come with having a bigger budget as well as the benefits. Trying to compete with people who have far more than us will always be part of the fun.”

That pressure on clubs like Stockport will likely define their seasons for reasons good or bad, although as captain Madden said after the game, explaining his justification for living away from his family back in Dublin: “If you feel that then you’re at the wrong club. You have to embrace that and if we get this team back in the EFL then we are going to be remembered forever.”

“There’s a business analogy, ‘Are you a gorilla or are you a chimpanzee?’,” adds Waterson. “Meaning, in business, are you the biggest player in the market who can beat up any other player — the gorilla — or are you smart, nimble and able to use your brains and wits, like the chimpanzee. Using a local comparison, Stockport are the gorilla to our chimpanzee. They have far more resources than we could ever have. If there’s competition for a player and they really wanted him, I don’t think there would be any chance we would win that fight.

“If we are ever in a position to go up, we will be ready to go up and will be able to hold our own. It’ll be easier in some respects to hold our own in the Football League than it would be to get out of the National League just because of some of the resources that are available to the clubs at the top of this league.”

Waterson believes that some League Two teams would “really struggle” if relegated to the National League and Southend is a good example — they currently sit 20th in the league although there is much greater unrest at Roots Hall than at fellow relegated team Grimsby, who are performing well so far under their new owners. This weekend, another of the league’s recent EFL sides who have struggled to bounce straight back, Notts County, broke the league attendance record with 12,843 at Meadow Lane for their 2-0 win over Solihull Moors. The last two seasons since they dropped out of the League have largely been painful, however, with agonising play-off defeats to Harrogate and Torquay in successive campaigns.

And what about clubs heading in the other direction? Love or hate them, Salford secured safety in their first season in the EFL and won the 2020 Papa John’s Trophy while Leyton Orient, Barrow and Harrogate have all retained League status since going up. Hartlepool and Sutton are both performing well so far this season, sitting 10th and eighth respectively.

As for Stockport, it is 10 years since they were last in the EFL but they are staging a sustained push, with wider plans for a new training ground since Mark Stott took over the club in January 2020.

“Clubs in the National League appear to have more money these days and are signing League Two, sometimes League One, players to help the team to get out of the National League and also make sure they are better equipped once promoted,” says Wiseman.

“I’ve seen a massive shift. It was once seen as League football and non-League football — dropping down was the end of your EFL days. Now the gap in wages and quality is closer to League Two than ever, so it will be the norm for players to be up and down between leagues. That will make the lower leagues even stronger.”

Clubs with ambitions of promotion clearly see the logic in investing in players with EFL experience to better manage the transition. The real challenge, though, remains to get out of the National League in the first place.

Experimental jabs, mention of the 'elite'. 

Never mind vaccinations Hugh, I think you're missing your tin hat. Nutter.

Did Peter Band have 2 spells?