Non-league football

[Big Geordie]

5-0 battering at home for Blyth off top of the table Macclesfield.  

[Paullow]

Heaton vs Bishop Auckland tonight at 7.45pm. Bishops should be safe now on 47 points, but a massive match for Heaton. That's the good thing with having so many local sides in the league, as long as both sides agree, you can have Friday night matches and then have the weekend off, fans can go to multiple matches if they wish.

 

It won't work this way, and they probably feel they need another 2 or 3 points just to be sure, plus a degree of bragging rights, Northumberland vs Durham, competitive nature etc. but if I was a Bishops player, I'd much rather make the 36 mile and 53 minute trip to Heaton next season, possibly on a Friday evening again, than say the 130 mile and 2 hours 30 min trip to Sherwood Colliery next season.

[Wallsendmag]

1 minute ago, Paullow said:

Heaton vs Bishop Auckland tonight at 7.45pm. Bishops should be safe now on 47 points, but a massive match for Heaton. That's the good thing with having so many local sides in the league, as long as both sides agree, you can have Friday night matches and then have the weekend off, fans can go to multiple matches if they wish.

 

It won't work this way, and they probably feel they need another 2 or 3 points just to be sure, plus a degree of bragging rights, Northumberland vs Durham, competitive nature etc. but if I was a Bishops player, I'd much rather make the 36 mile and 53 minute trip to Heaton next season, possibly on a Friday evening again, than say the 130 mile and 2 hours 30 min trip to Sherwood Colliery next season.

 

Gutted I'm on nights tonight. Really fancied going to this. Should be a belter of a game and a huge crowd as well, especially given the weather.

[Paullow]

I see the Northumberland Senior Cup final between Heaton and Morpeth has been confirmed as Wed 14th May at 7.30pm @ SJP.

[Paullow]

2-0 Heaton at half time. They've gone from 18th to 12th in the live table, which is crazy when you consider they are in gameweek 38 of 42, you'd maybe expect that after 6 or 7 games, but not at this stage. Would be a massive win if they get it, and seems like it's been deserved from the live text.

[joeyt]

Spennymoor in the FA Trophy final 

[ponsaelius]

Hell of an effort tbf

[Paullow]

90+5 min equaliser for them as well (6 mins were added on), seems it went straight to pens.

 

[ponsaelius]

Fylde the only club to win both the Vase and Trophy I think, so chance for them to match that 

[Dava1892]

Fun and games at the Hebburn game. Poor first half then Hebburn bossed the second half equalising in the 90th minute to then give a pen away in the 93rd minute. Pen resulted in 2nd yellow and player not happy with comments from coaching staff so walks over and chins him on the touchline on the way off. Shambles!

 

 

Edited April 6 by Dava1892

[Yorkie]

Forest Green lose again leaving York City on an island in second; eight points clear of third and eight points adrift of first. Maddening that the top two don't go up; it's not quite Wrexham and Notts County levels of separation but they're, by a distance, the second best team in the division. They've earned a promotion by any reasonable metric. 

[Optimistic Nut]

Two of Gateshead's deadline day signings scoring and ending their stinking run. Hopefully they give them a second wind. 

[Kaizero]

On 06/04/2025 at 09:09, Yorkie said:

Forest Green lose again leaving York City on an island in second; eight points clear of third and eight points adrift of first. Maddening that the top two don't go up; it's not quite Wrexham and Notts County levels of separation but they're, by a distance, the second best team in the division. They've earned a promotion by any reasonable metric. 

 

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/13303455/national-league-clubs-launch-campaign-for-three-promotion-places-to-english-football-league

 

 

This needs more backing tbh.

[Optimistic Nut]

Make it League 3 and have National League North & South beneath it. The majority of clubs are professional anyway, just mirror L1 & L2.

[Pilko]

Saw a stat the other day saying that a team promoted from the National League hasn't gone straight back down the season after for about 40 years or something. There's clearly very little between League 2 and the Vanarama.

[Optimistic Nut]

It's not uncommon for clubs to go from NL to League 1 pretty quickly too. Seems dated to have only 2 clubs being able to go up. 

[Paully]

The Heed are apparently getting bought out by a Nigerian consortium (not the dodgy email variety!) headed by Victor Anichebe!

[CoreOfNUFC]

29 minutes ago, Paully said:

The Heed are apparently getting bought out by a Nigerian consortium (not the dodgy email variety!) headed by Victor Anichebe!

Been happening for months now yet no progress really, starting to lose faith.

[Stifler]

On 09/04/2025 at 06:23, Optimistic Nut said:

Make it League 3 and have National League North & South beneath it. The majority of clubs are professional anyway, just mirror L1 & L2.

I’ve said this for a while.

They really to make it as part of the EFL, and they could split it so that League 2 and the National League are at the same level, but divided North vs South.

I’d also go ahead and reduced each EFL League to 20 teams. A lot more chance of more meaningful games towards the end of the season, and less midweek games.

 

You could organise it so that the League Cup has a more interesting opening rounds for the EFL clubs, or make the EFL Trophy more interesting to replace the lost fixtures. For the teams in League Two North/South, it should mean less country long away trips which can be costly for those clubs, and could mean more away fans attending lower league games, as well as opening up the possibility of more local/regional rivalries developing.

[ponsaelius]

It doesn't need to be part of the Football League. It's fine as the top tier of non-league and as a buffer league between regionalisation/semi-professionalism.

 

Some of the clubs who come up into it continue to operate part time, while the ground requirements etc are a lot less stringent than the football league (lots of non league clubs rely on having a plastic pitch for example). A lot of teams who play in the National League are a long way off being football league clubs and that's fine.

 

There are big clubs and ambitious clubs at the top end that get stuck there though and there should definitely be an extra promotion place. That is long overdue.

 

 

Edited Friday at 21:04 by ponsaelius

[Paullow]

NPL East relegation fight is crazy. Just as Heaton and Ashington were looking OK the other day, they both lose today, and while Consett looked like they were sleepwalking to relegation, they beat 2nd placed Dunston. The bottom 3 are officially down after today, so it is 1 from 7 or 8. At least only 1 at most of the aforementioned 3 can go down, but hopefully they all stay up.

 

 

Bridlington and Brighouse were both winning in injury time, but both were pegged back to 2-2, so that's good, although Ossett won away at a playoff chasing side.

 

 

[Paullow]

Redcar Ath all but champions now, and I assume they can/will get promoted - I'm not even sure you could cheat on Football/Championship Manager to get Shildon to overturn that final day goal difference. 

 

Blue Star and Boro both won (as did Kendal), so the 4 playoff spots are now sorted as well, but still placements and home advantage to decide on the final day. Blue Star are away to Blyth so all 3 of them could finish 3rd (with play off home advantage) and that match could be a semi final / final rehearsal.

 

 

[Kaizero]

3 minutes ago, Paullow said:

I'm not even sure you could cheat on Football/Championship Manager to get Shildon to overturn that final day goal difference. 

 

Easy; take over Redcar and make them field 11 youth goalkeepers with no subs in a 0-0-10 formation. Take over whatever club Shildon is playing and do the same you did to Redcar with them. Should see an easy 15+ or 15- goal swing in all required matches.

 

[Disco]

46 minutes ago, Paullow said:

NPL East relegation fight is crazy. Just as Heaton and Ashington were looking OK the other day, they both lose today, and while Consett looked like they were sleepwalking to relegation, they beat 2nd placed Dunston. The bottom 3 are officially down after today, so it is 1 from 7 or 8. At least only 1 at most of the aforementioned 3 can go down, but hopefully they all stay up.

 

 

Bridlington and Brighouse were both winning in injury time, but both were pegged back to 2-2, so that's good, although Ossett won away at a playoff chasing side.

 

 

Ashington v Heaton on bank holiday Monday is going to be huge. Heaton at home to Liversedge before that so hopefully they’ll be out the muck before that. Their home form is way better than their away.

[Paullow]

41 minutes ago, Disco said:

Ashington v Heaton on bank holiday Monday is going to be huge. Heaton at home to Liversedge before that so hopefully they’ll be out the muck before that. Their home form is way better than their away.

Yeah, Ashington are at Sheffield on the same day, so they will be thinking the same. Consett away at Ossett which is a big match as well. I was looking at that Northumberland match, but was then thinking of doing Consett vs Bishops, you could technically do both as Ashington-Heaton is 12pm. I think I'll go to one of them, and see how GW40 goes first before deciding.

 

Unbelievably tight - Heaton were 15th at the start of the day, but 4 teams have passed them.