The Grassroots/Local Football Thread

Charlie Foley

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Mar 11, 2012
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With top-level football feeling a bit sterile/state-owned/shite at times lately, I thought it would be a good idea to have a thread where we could discuss local/amateur/semi pro teams.

Happy to hear about teams you're involved in, or follow, or are near you, or whatever.

If you are fortunate enough that your closest football team is some massive club, congratulations, but that's not the spirit of this thread :D
 
I'm a player coach for a network of 6 Saturday and Sunday teams. Absolutely love it
 
I semi supported a team about a 10 minute walk from my front door for five years or so. I moved back to my home town last year about three/hour hours away, and the local team I used to play for got promoted into the same league.

Bit of a conundrum of who to support in that game :lol:
 
I’m thinking of joining a vets team now that I’m old and injured enough. Problem is, all the vets football I’ve watched in the area looks more violent that the open age :lol:
Not sure I can be arsed limping into the office on a Monday morning
 
The reason I thought of this is that this summer is the first season of Annapolis Blues FC.

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They play in the NPSL (National Premier Soccer League), a semi-pro league comprised of 14 conferences in 4 regions.

Annapolis play in the Mid-Atlantic Conference of the Eastern Region. This past weekend they/we officially won the regular season conference: with 9 of 10 games played, they have 8 wins and a draw, with the best attack and defence in the conference. Due to this success, they'll play in the conference playoffs, hosting the semi final in a week or so as the number 1 seed, and would host the finals should they get there.

So far it's a well supported team, especially by the standards of this level. They set the attendance record for an NPSL game in their home opener, with 8,300+ attending. I think their 4 home games so far are all in the top 5 or 6 NPSL attendances ever. Sadly, I think, they play in the Naval Academy's football stadium, which has a capacity of 34,000, so everyone just packs into the lower tier of one stand. Granted, the Navy Football team can't fill the stadium either, so whatever.

navy_after.jpeg


As an Irishman in the US, I find a lot of the behaviour at games pretty funny, as people are clearly trying to emulate things they've seen on tv, or heard about on the internet. There is a singing section of sorts, they might call themselves "ultras", who call themselves "The Bay Bhoys" (Annapolis is situated on the Chesapeake Bay) which is a shite name but the logo is a crab so what do you expect. However, it's great having a local team, especially seeing the number of young kids going to games.
 
Dan_F said:
I semi supported a team about a 10 minute walk from my front door for five years or so. I moved back to my home town last year about three/hour hours away, and the local team I used to play for got promoted into the same league.

Bit of a conundrum of who to support in that game :lol:
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:lol: That’s great. Anyone you played with still on the team?
 
Local football is great. A friend of mine plays to a decent standard so I regularly go and watch his team. The problem is they're up against it really as they are literally the only team in their division that don't pay their players, and they're based in a village with about 800 people in it, so they're up against it this season really :lol:
 
I play regularly for a Saturday side and play on a Tuesday with some lads from a local hospital.

One of my mates plays for Avro and I’m gonna go watch them a lot this year.
 
T00lsh3d said:
I’m thinking of joining a vets team now that I’m old and injured enough. Problem is, all the vets football I’ve watched in the area looks more violent that the open age :lol:
Not sure I can be arsed limping into the office on a Monday morning
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Blimey, what county are you?

I play for a Saturday team at a decent standard and play in a vets league Sundays, the vets league is brilliant fun, Saturdays can get a little rough at times but generally it's ok.

Although I am the only player to have got a red card in our vets league last season :lol:
 
Champ said:
Blimey, what county are you?

I play for a Saturday team at a decent standard and play in a vets league Sundays, the vets league is brilliant fun, Saturdays can get a little rough at times but generally it's ok.

Although I am the only player to have got a red card in our vets league last season :lol:
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East Yorkshire, England :D

Yeah I’m gonna end up getting into it soon, maybe this coming season. I’m 37 which is old enough for vets, I play 5 a side midweek and standards wise could probably play open age, just not sure my knees and back could stay in place long enough:lol:
 
I support Whitchurch Alport, they play in the Midland League and finished a heady 9th in the Premier Division last season.
I’ve been to quite a few Premier League games so can say with the utmost sincerity that the fan experience is quite different to what you dudes will be used to. Actually better in some ways but much worse in others.
The standard of footie in the Midland League compares very poorly to the PL in pure footballing terms but, if you can get your head around there being lots of different sorts of football played, and all depending on the level of the games played, then you can really enjoy watching them play.
It’s the same game but different is all, sort of like stock car racing compared to Formula 1. F1 has all the money, all the best cars, all the stars but that doesn’t mean that stock car racing can’t be a good day out.

Oh, and if you think that your refereeing is bad then go and watch a regional league game and you’ll see what bad really is . . Or maybe not bad, maybe more hilarious - decisions are so often totally wrong and they can be creasingly funny . . there are games where referee decisions leave supporters, players, linesmen and club staff mouthing the word ‘what?’ holding their hands out, shrugging and looking at each other with puzzled expressions, holding their heads etc.

Anyhow, that’s my local side.

Oh, and they play in red & white . . but it’s not like you’re copying them because they were formed in 1946
 
I live in Salford so close to united.

Also coach/manage a local openage team called beechfield united. Any lads on here in the area that are half decent fancy joining up give me a shout
 
Charlie Foley said:
:lol: That’s great. Anyone you played with still on the team?
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I probably didn’t describe it well enough, I played for the underage teams 15/20 years ago. Stopped playing football at about 17 :lol:

Although it is a small place so some of the players I played with (and went to school with) definitely played for the first team and are still connected to the club in some way.
 
fecking money even destroyed local football for me. A chinese businessman bought my local club about 10 years ago, the business was simple, getting loads of brazilians and resell them to central and eastern european clubs a couple of years later when they had EU passport. We were a yoyo team between leagues 3 and 4, in those 7 years we were promoted to league 2, which was great, we even played Sporting and Benfica in the cup.

But of course, no free meals, and as soon as the business dried up, he pulled the plug and because the club had accepted to form a new entity to register in the league, we were forbidden to register and in the last 2 years there has been no football. This is a club founded in 1947 and for the first time there was no football.

Things are still in court because a new businessman wants to buy the club, but it's looking likely we're going for a 3rd season without footie.

All the youth teams of the club, from little kids to under-19, always played in the top division for each age group, we have league and uefa certificates for youth formation and now of course, without senior football, all the kids prefer to leave t another club when they turn 16 or 17, it's a fecking disaster.

Rant over.
 
maniak said:
fecking money even destroyed local football for me. A chinese businessman bought my local club about 10 years ago, the business was simple, getting loads of brazilians and resell them to central and eastern european clubs a couple of years later when they had EU passport. We were a yoyo team between leagues 3 and 4, in those 7 years we were promoted to league 2, which was great, we even played Sporting and Benfica in the cup.

But of course, no free meals, and as soon as the business dried up, he pulled the plug and because the club had accepted to form a new entity to register in the league, we were forbidden to register and in the last 2 years there has been no football. This is a club founded in 1947 and for the first time there was no football.

Things are still in court because a new businessman wants to buy the club, but it's looking likely we're going for a 3rd season without footie.

All the youth teams of the club, from little kids to under-19, always played in the top division for each age group, we have league and uefa certificates for youth formation and now of course, without senior football, all the kids prefer to leave t another club when they turn 16 or 17, it's a fecking disaster.

Rant over.
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That is a real shame. Is that Atlético ?
 
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