JEFF STELLING ON NON-LEAGUE
NON-LEAGUE DAY shows off everything great about this level of the game and it’s a big celebration for Prostate Cancer UK too.
This weekend marks the tenth anniversary of their involvement with this special fixture in the football calendar.
Since 2014, Prostate Cancer UK has worked with the National League, its sponsors Vanarama, as well as hundreds of clubs. They have reached hundreds of thousands of men as well as raising more than £250,000, attracting national media attention in the process. And this year will be no different.
I was at Eastleigh to watch my team, Hartlepool United, in National League action.
Prostate Cancer is a disease that affects one in eight men in the UK. That’s thousands of dads, grandads, partners, brothers, uncles, sons and mates. Those odds shorten to one in four if you are black.
It’s so key to raise awareness and football has been a key driver for doing so. From many Premier League managers wearing the Man of Men badge on their lapel in post-match interviews that are beamed to a worldwide wide audience to special events like this.
When we’ve done the marathon walks around the country over the years, the ideas was always to visit as many football clubs – from Premier to Non-League – that we could. So many people come into contact with their local football club.
Take Pools for example. Where else, on a good day, do you get 5,000 people together on a Saturday afternoon where you get the message through? Of course, it’s also about supporting your team. You those see in the Premier League – Newcastle and Liverpool – when they’re affected by injuries.
Of course, it’s an excuse when it doesn’t go well and lots of teams could give the same story. But further down the ladder you feel the impact of those injuries even more.
Ours have been beyond belief to a absolutely key players. Anthony Mancini, Josh Umerah, Danny Dodds hasn’t kicked a ball since he was injured against Fylde in August. Those three are massive players for us. It’s hard to find replacements of that calibre.
You pray players like Mani Dieseruvwe and Nicky Featherstone stay fit. They’ve dragged us kicking and screaming up the table.
Obviously we changed manager, like many teams do, and Kev Phillips has been doing well.
We’re much stronger defensively. The arrival of Luke Waterfall and Tom Parkes have really helped that. They may not be blessed with pace but they have that real nous.
Without Dieseruvwe’s goals we would be right down there so we know we need to score more goals. But having a manager who knew where the back of the net was can only be good.
I’m told he is really handson. He wants to coach, not just be a figurehead at the front.
This is a guy who was the Premier League’s Golden Boot winner in 1999-2000, when he scored 30 goals for Sunderland and an England international who has played at the highest level.
But he’s willing to get stuck in – as he did at South Shields – so far down the pyramid. There is a lot to like about that. Of course I am biased, but I wish him well because of how he is doing it.
It’s possibly a misguided perception that with Chesterfield out of the division next season, it feels a bit more open. Whoever comes down out of League Two, won’t carry the same financial and support clout Chesterfield have got.
If you’d asked at the start of the season who will be up there, everyone would have chosen Chesterfield. And all credit to them.
However, if you look at the six who come next in the table, not many would have picked teams like Altrincham or FC Halifax to be in the mix at this stage of the season.
It’s such a wide open division – and that’s one of the attractions of it.
To find out more about your risk, or that of your partner, father or friend, visit Prostate Cancer UK’s website prostatecanceruk. org/nld10-risk – and try our 30 second online risk checker
