What's it like in tiers 7-9 of English football? Do these clubs actually have fans? Do they have legit managers who see themselves as serious football managers? Or is everyone just kinda semi-pro and you play your match and all hit the pub afterwards? I've been fascinated with the lower tiers of the pyramid lately. Also can a mega rich owner buy one of these clubs and just start hiring EFL level players to walk the league and get promoted every year?
>>154963930Before an English anon replies: since clubs in Germany that play in these tiers usually do have fans, I will gleefully assume the same applies to English clubs. Why wouldn't these clubs have fans? Some have more, some have fewer, of course, depending on their history and/or the size of their town. But they'll all have fans in their own town at least. Some of these fans may also be fans of other, "bigger" clubs, thoughThe managers are usually legit as well, though it depends on what you call "legit". They'll usually have different main jobs, but football is their passion and they can be expected to have been educated to be managers in some formThere will be a strong amateur vibe to all of this, these people are not professionals who only play football for a living. They get money, they have facilities to train in, they probably won't go around boozing 24/7. But they aren't comparable to the Premier League playersAnd yes, a mega rich guy can buy these clubs and build them up. It's just a really long way and costs tons of money. But you can do it
>>154963930It depends on the club. Dulwich Hamlet had an average attendance of 2,226 last season despite playing in the Isthmian League Premier Division. They were one of seven clubs in that league to have an average attendance of 1,000+ and the average for the league as a whole was around 750
>>154963981Based and sovlpilled, thanks anon. I guess in retrospect it's a pretty dumb question if they have fans, of course they do, just didn't know how much support they got. Are most the players domestic since it's semi-pro level and they still need to work elsewhere during the week?Also I'm assuming most games aren't televised? There's something strangely comfy about knowing you and your community are the only ones seeing the game and, frankly, probably the only ones who care about the results. My mega-corporatized American mind is craving something smaller
most fans of those clubs will also support a club in at least the top 5 tiers, but generally speaking would support their smaller club should they meet in the FA Cup
>>154964035Games are never televised, unless they play in the FA Cup against a professional club. The only other matches that'd be televised for teams in tiers 7-9 are the FA Trophy final and the FA Vase final
I live near one of these teams (in fact, I live near two of them - my house is about halfway between Wythenshawe Town and AFC Wythenshawe). You won’t see people walking around the streets in their shirts, but if you go to a match, people wear the shirts there. The fans mostly know each other, and stand around (there are no seats) talking to each other. There will be a clubhouse that you can go in to buy drinks and maybe food, and there are a lot of kids there. It really has the vibe of going to a barbecue or a local village fete, except instead of food stalls and fairground games, there’s a football match taking place. It’s nice. It doesn’t really matter if you win or lose, but of course you still want your team to win. The players are better than anyone you know, but they’re mostly people who were in academies at bigger teams and then never made it as professionals. They get paid, but they have day jobs too.
>>154964035>Are most the players domestic since it's semi-pro level and they still need to work elsewhere during the week?They're usually somewhat domestic, but there is a lot of variety. You can expect these clubs to have some players who already played for them at youth level (often before going to a big club's academy as a kid, failing to make a breakthrough, then returning), the others mostly were brought up in the region or moved there at some point. It's fairly regional but still too "professional" to result in a team only of boys from your villageAs the UK anon said, some clubs have like 200 people showing up and some get 2000Some games may be televised - but these are special events only and usually either involve a nationally relevant club or a tournament final. And then it's primarily going to be regional TV only. For most of these players, there's not going to be anything like that ever, except maybe once or twice in their careersAmateur football is very comfy indeed. I can only recommend it. The banter is top tier, you either know all your local lads already or get to know them quickly, atmosphere is good, and the football itself is a very entertaining mix of genuine skill and total meme stuff. It's serious enough but not completely fucked
>>154964172Lower league clubs definitely have a stronger identity, but also the benefit of people just enjoying the game as entertainment rather than a life-or-death religious experience.
My Villagers :)
>>154972872https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztOeUCoelvk
>>154963930Wether a club has fans or not does not depend on success and size of the club as much. For example, my hometown shitters are now in third division but even in fourth (Regionalliga),which is technically speaking not even pro footy anymore, they could draw a few thousand people to their home games and a few hundred on any given away match>tfw you go off the S-bahn and get escorted to the stadium by riot gear police and a helicopter just to see your shitters smack blood rival shitters 4-0 on their home pitchTop 10 best days of my life desu
>>154963930You have to think of tiers as geographical areas. National > Regional > State-level > City-level > ... > Block-level.Think of it as NBA > G-League > College > Highschool > etc. Some of these colleges are known nationally, some are only known regionally, some are only known in their city, same for highschools and the level keeps going down until you find street basketball teams that get together once in a while for a local tourney and then go smoke together after the game.So 7-9 tier are still "big", they usually do have a following, maybe not as serious as a tier 1 team, but people who live nearby will watch them will support them, friends of friends will showup, that stuff. The more local it is the more likely you are of finding [spoiler]two-teamers[/spoiler]
Most of the crowd at non league games are either old cunts with nothing better to do or day trippers when their main team are either away or not playing that day.
>>154973135Depends, there's huge differences between village clubs and say London clubs, which can go either way like Dulwich Hamlet and Clapton CFC with nice supports, to teams who basically share a school's 4G pitch with dugouts and a fence
>>154973172>to teams who basically share a school's 4G pitch with dugouts and a fenceTake Portishead Town for example, who were trying to play at Step 3 (7th tier) with this stadium. The FA relegated them back to Step 5 (9th tier) because of it.
Not even the OP but thanks all for sharing this stuff, I’ve never been to a MLS match but have been to one USL Championship and one USL League one match (our tiers 2/3) and it’s cool to learn about the bigger places that have pro/rel all the way down to dudes like us. I wish we had that and hope USL does it well. Sucks MLS doesn’t want to participate in it even though I don’t care about the MLS, but that would make me slightly interested so thanks all for sharing again from a different American
>>154973199Support Hull City
>>154973262Fuck off Alife Potts Hammer
>>154973365Why don't you fuck off Alberta Child Harmer
>>154973182That doesn't look that much worse than my local stadium.
>>154973172Clapton and Dulwich are faggot Reddit clubs that are an anomaly when it comes to non league football.
>>154973585I can think of several others. Whitehawk, West Didsbury & Chorlton, Blyth Spartans, none near London
>>154973610Was disappointed Spartans kept themselves up instead of plummeting to the Northern League.
>>154973610How on Earth do you know about non-League teams from all over the country? You're right about West Didsbury & Chorlton because I live near there, but I have never heard of Whitehawk.
>>154973654Whitehawk are near Brighton, they're one of those clubs that had a massive amount of money pumped into them and then never really went anywhere with it
>>154973675Like those useless twats at Hashtag
>>154963930>>154964017>>154965826I used to play against Dulwich Hamlet fairly often between the ages of 11-17. Was always mega jelly of their pitches with their fancy grass and functioning goal nets - our home pitch was mud with grass only at the cornerflags like a month into a season. They also had relatively pro coaches who wore tracksuits and were in decent shape, whereas our coach had a beer belly. They used to thrash us every time but once we went 3-0 up and then lost something like 3-7 kek.Something I didn't appreciate at the time was when we won a cup. We basically had no chance but somehow kept winning. The excitement grew and eventually we were drawing crowds of 10+ people - even absent fathers of the lads were turning up. I remember two minutes into the final someone hoofed the ball really high and I miss-timed my header and connected with it on my crown and my vision went weird for a second. I kept playing and we won 1-0. My mum (who came to every game) was so proud.Lower-tier football is peak sovl and I feel bad for people who missed out on it. If you did please don't let your children miss out on it too.
>>154973801bump for more lower league sovl.
>>154976494
>>154977055
Last matchday of the season this Sunday, >we'll probably finish 5th. The team goes to Mallorca to booze afterwardsLast week, they played against the reserve side of the biggest club in the region. I think attendance was like 1,500. Quite comfy, good atmosphere. It unfortunately didn't end well, narrow lossStill, a great experience
>>154977263Post pics
The quality of the National League is pretty good considering it's 5th tierhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jeb_ai6PVzc
>>154983602I didn't take any, I must admitThey played on a training pitch, not the most kino ground. Briefly discussed playing in the actual stadium since the reserve side was a win away from promotion. That would have been very cool, but it wasn't meant to be. The local FA council said it was too short on notice, and the stadium was occupied for weddings or some shit
>>154973585>Clapton FC>Pro-Immigrant Anti-FascismWhat did they mean by this
