The English Lower League thread

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Stray Wasp

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After Alan the Nottingham Forest fan pointed out that there was no thread for the Championship, ta-da!

Indeed, this thread also encompasses what used to be Divisions Three and Four but have since been "rebranded" by besuited, management-speak spewing pillocks who believe that a new name can suddenly make punters believe that Hereford versus Rochdale is the last word in glamour.

Non-league football belongs here too; there may be reason to remember this.
 

Stray Wasp

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In the Championship: the good news is that West Ham are doing well. The bad news is that Sam Allardyce is still manager. More good news: some West Ham fans hate him anyway on account of the boring football. More bad news: the London media isn't lining up hourly to slam those fans as deluded people with ideas above their station, which is somewhat inconsistent.

Southampton are second and after that nine teams are within six points of each other. Chris Hughton's Birmingham are closing on the leaders, whilst Leeds have changed manager again and are currently short of the playoffs. The third off bottom team is Doncaster-five points from safety. Forest and Coventry are even further back.

In the old Third Division, five decent football clubs and two stinking piles of effluent occupy the top seven places: namely the two Sheffield clubs, Huddersfield (Jordan Rhodes scoring at practically a goal a game), Carlisle, Milton Keynes and those pestilent toerags from Hertfordshire. Charlton have a handy lead at the top and numerous teams might get relegated.

In the old Fourth Division, thirteen out of the twenty-four teams are within six points of a playoff spot. Five points seperate the top six, including... Shrewsbury! In between moments of drooling stupidity, Paolo Di Canio has Swindon in fifth.

AFC Wimbledon I'm pleased to report are twelve points clear of the relegation zone. That's currently occupied by Plymouth (financially crippled) and Northampton (a club who many moons ago played in the top flight, no less).

In the Conference, the presence of brown-nosing fool Dean Saunders as manager hasn't prevented Wrexham from being the only team keeping up with Fleetwood at the top. York and Gateshead are in the playoff mix up but Darlington were within hours of going out of business last month, barely saved by their small but devoted fanbase pouring their own money into the financial black hole that has all but destroyed the club.
 

Stray Wasp

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It should be noted that Southend are challenging for automatic promotion though. They're second, ahead of Swindon, who I unaccountably docked two positions.
 

Chimaera

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West Ham back. Should be interesting who comes up with them and who goes down.

Brighton has certainly faded a bit. For all the money Leicester City has spent, they're still mediocre it seems.
 

Stray Wasp

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Hello, Cardiff fan. This is the place where you can shout the odds about possibly getting promotion only to be cruelly denied for the umpteenth year in a row.

Come one, come all. The more the merrier.

Very few people around here pay any attention to the lower leagues, therefore you can probably file utterly fictitious match reports or totally fabricated pieces of news without fear of reproach.

If you want to claim that Cardiff beat Doncaster 13-1 before a crowd of 139,000 in a game that was interrupted by a plague of starfish, go right ahead and no one will bat an eyelid.
 

Shrimper

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It should be noted that Southend are challenging for automatic promotion though. They're second, ahead of Swindon, who I unaccountably docked two positions.

True but we won't make it. Other team around us have games in hand and we're struggling. Play-offs and failure for us.
 

Brodie

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It must be so hard for Cardiff supporters to watch Swansea every week knowing that it could have been them at any point in like the last decade.

I haven't been following the Championship this year (to quote Blur, woo hoo), who looks good for the playoff spot?
 

Johnnywhite

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It must be so hard for Cardiff supporters to watch Swansea every week knowing that it could have been them at any point in like the last decade.

I haven't been following the Championship this year (to quote Blur, woo hoo), who looks good for the playoff spot?

Maybe Birmingham...if they don't beat out Southampton for an automatic spot. Blackpool starting to look decent also.
 

Brodie

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Birmingham, West Ham and Southampton? My, that's not exciting at all.
 

Live in the Now

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Saints back in the top flight would be nice. As long as Middlesbrough doesn't make it, I'm happy with the other options.
 

Shameus

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Who knew LITN had North East leanings? :sarcasm:


I actually started following Darlington a few seasons ago. Watching them get relegated from League 2 was heart breaking. I felt maybe things got turned around when they won the FA Trophy last season. Maybe, just maybe they will accomplish something similar to what the Chester City fans did. When the club folded the fan base started it back up with the supporters group as the ownership and board. They're still in conference play but they are on solid footing financially last I heard. Singh has just run Darlington into the ground. Darlington hasn't folded completely yet and the club would stay in the same conference it is and not 2-3 rungs down for folding and reforming if the supporters group can get this taken care of.
 

Shrimper

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People originally signed up to it as an interesting gimmick but I think people realised after a while that, actually, they don't have much say.
 

Bluebirds Boyo

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It was a scam. You were giving Will Brooks the money to buy himself a football club (and probably a larger house on top) in exchange for him giving you control of it for a year at a time. There are plenty of clubs genuinely owned by fans like Exeter, Wrexham and company.
 

Brodie

the dream of the 90s is alive in Detroit
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I read where their chairman said he'd heard from a lot of former members that they expected to buy someone like Leeds United, which I don't doubt to be honest. I know people had other unrealistic expectations like being allowed free tickets or showing up to meet the club as the owner or being voted onto the board of the club. In the end it was exactly as you said, BB, a bunch of people paying £35 per year to play a management sim with a non-league club none of them had heard of.

I do feel bad for Ebbsfleet and their actual supporters, though, they never asked for this. I do sometimes wonder if they had managed to buy a Cambridge United, Bristol Rovers or some lower level club in London like Barnet if it might have worked out better... at least then there'd have been some name power to keep the money running.
 

Stray Wasp

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Haris Vuckic loaned from Newcastle to Cardiff for a month. A very good chance for him to live up to the hype that has hitherto surrounded him.

He's cup-tied for the League Cup.
 

Shrimper

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Southend 0-1 Rotherham.

Froze my arse off in -5 degree weather for an absolutely horrible performance.
 

Stray Wasp

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He says, directed at me, over a player that was substituted 46 minutes into his debut...

Substituted for injury or rank badness?

He really is meant to be the club's best young prospect right now. Though perhaps it's faint praise.

Loans can be a strange business, mind. Andy Carroll was unproductive at Preston, then came back to Newcastle and scored goals.

Nobody knows anything...
 
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