(Photo: Steve Niblett)
By Alex Narey
It was approximately 4.49pm on Sunday, May 14, and referee Anthony Backhouse had just blown his whistle It was approximately 4.49pm on Sunday, May 14, and referee Anthony Backhouse had just blown his whistle to signal the end of the National League play-off final between Tranmere and Forest Green Rovers.
While Mark Cooper’s men toasted their entry into the Football League with a deserved 3-1 victory, the realisation dawned that the league season was over. Nine hard months and 39 Saturdays covering football in its purest form, but now I’m done. Non-League Finals Day is still to come a week later but it’s a non-working gig. Summer has arrived. It’s feet up time…
Like everyone, I had grand plans to switch off – a bit of DIY in the house we moved into back in April and the loyalty card at Homebase would be getting a working over. There would be BBQs; Saturday morning ballet classes to attend (not for me… watching my five-year-old daughter); then there was that new soft-play house that had opened in town. We just had to take the kids there!
As for the sport, well, the England football team wouldn’t be letting me down in a major championship because there wasn’t one; rugby would be stealing all the headlines as the British & Irish Lions took on the mighty All Blacks; and there was cricket, lovely cricket…
But football in the off-season; it’s a curious phenomenon I have yet to learn how to manage. This year was no different as things started to unravel. My daughter’s pirouettes at the ballet only served to remind me of a ‘Cruyff turn’ with not even half the balance (sorry Ella, you’ll get there kid!), and that new soft-play house ‘we just had to go to’ turned out to be exactly the same as the other 37 soft-play houses I have been dragged to this year…
Oh yes, and the rugby – you think you love it but you realise you don’t know how the off-side rule works, or the difference between a ruck and a maul (I do… but you get my point). Meanwhile, the England cricket team proves just as skilled in the art of being absolutely useless just when you think they are absolutely brilliant.
This is why I cannot wait for Saturday, for the heart and soul of sport to return, for the weekly emotional rollercoaster that is Non-League football. It’s what we know. It’s what we do. It’s what we love. Here’s wishing you all the best for the season!
Surprised you didn’t allude to the great value-for-money sport of Rugby League here, Alex. No loose scrums, no mauls, no line-outs, and Brian Barwick plays a major administrative role in both RL AND the National League (when he’s not fronting Liverpool’s bid for the Commonwealth Games).