National League Fixtures - 30/3/2018

[fifaking]

Our players weren't too happy with the penalty decision I believe. From what the commentary seemed to indicate, the ref was shite not biased. Another example was that it appeared he only booked wedgebury due to pressure from Bromley players. .. which is just weak and crap ..but sadly the norm down here.

It was a soft one I thought at the time. But really stupid and unnecessary from Wedge.

Loved Roger Johnson getting sent off, got some great abuse from the away end.

 

[RLC]

Aside from the incompetence of the Dover administrators, the match officials and the National League, it was a good day for us as third place is now in our own hands. I expect we will win our next three matches which will put a lot of pressure on our rivals.

 

[Redbank]

Dodged a bullet today going to saints v wigan rather then dover, ive heard that mark palios tweeted the national league questioning the procedures and practices carried out by the dover club and the national league BLOCKED the ex chairman of the f.a... who do these people think they are?

Im torn between this being the height of arrogance or a spotty teenager who didnt know palios history .

On the field can i be the first to congratulate pools on staying up, i hope our 50 or so supporters cheered you on today!! Bring on saturday i cannot wait.

Quite what did we do wrong then, The referee deemed that surface playable when he arrived at 12-00, , had been some rain, then after he gave the OK the rain got heavier he then went out on the pitch around 1-15 and ask a Volunteer to throw the ball into the air , and when it landed it did not bounce,
he called it off there and then stating it was still raining, and forecast to all afternoon
The grounds man said that he could remove any standing water , with the blotter but he refused that offer , I left the ground at 4-15 , it had not stopped raining , and there were large puddles of standing water, But reading on here , It was Dover that called it off, but in reality , you know that we cant call a game off, only a referee can , we could have called in a referee early in the morning, but if the pitch was playable at 12-00 it would have been playable at 8 in the morning

 

[RLC]

Quite what did we do wrong then, The referee deemed that surface playable when he arrived at 12-00, , had been some rain, then after he gave the OK the rain got heavier he then went out on the pitch around 1-15 and ask a Volunteer to throw the ball into the air , and when it landed it did not bounce,
he called it off there and then stating it was still raining, and forecast to all afternoon
The grounds man said that he could remove any standing water , with the blotter but he refused that offer , I left the ground at 4-15 , it had not stopped raining , and there were large puddles of standing water, But reading on here , It was Dover that called it off, but in reality , you know that we cant call a game off, only a referee can , we could have called in a referee early in the morning, but if the pitch was playable at 12-00 it would have been playable at 8 in the morning

I don't believe the ref knew what he was talking about. A pitch that is unplayable at 1.30 must have been close to saturation well before then. If you had called in a local ref to inspect in the morning and he had used any common sense, he could have predicted the pitch would not be playable with heavy rain forecast all day and called the game off there and then. At least the majority of our supporters could have turned round at Birmingham rather than turning up at the ground.

However, my main criticism of your club would be your chairman's reaction on your website. He mentioned his cash flow about eight times and did not show any regret towards the travelling supporters at all. I know he can't control the weather but he could have some basic manners.

 

[Huntsman94]

Calling a match off happens it's just frustrating the short notice especially given the distance travelled.

As for Dover... It's not their fault at all however a bit of notice on the weather and a possible pitch inspection would have been good. One thing however not a word of 'sorry' from them to Tranmere. Even their chairman (who is a twat anyway) giving a 2 min interview and refuses to recognise us at all. But then again we're talking about a club that refused to let Tranmere use the club's electricity in the past to treat an injured player!

Macc again with the last min winner is pretty impressive and shows the spirit they have. Boreham Wood, Aldershot and Wrexham all dropped points so top 3 looking good for us now.

 

[Fyldefan]

Feels like the football on offer today was so bad that it's distracted us from talking about what an awful little racket AFC Fylde are.

You arrive with 15 minutes to spare, and you enter the ground 15 minutes into the match. Sure you didn't buy advance tickets, but why should you? Members of your party can come in or pull out with no notice and they've made £16 out of you instantly, or made you queue for 30 minutes anyway.

To the knaves who didn't buy in advance, for some reason only known to Flyde they have you queueing for a ticket office so you can scan a bar code into an automatic reader, saving the hassle of having manned turnstiles when you can have four orange fluorescent monkeys show you where to scan the ticket instead. As soon as you've passed the security frotteurs and the sniffer dog anyway.

Flyde have fluffed themselves up as a football league club to be since their inception (2008/09?). (They got 200 in when we took 500 over there in 2009/10, meaning that 500 Shaymen have been watching AFC Flyde longer than 90% of their own "fans".) Us, Grimsby, Bury, Lincoln, Tranmere, whoever... you go to the turnstiles, tell the attendee who you are and click right through. 1,500 there or 8,000, it's no hassle. If there is crowd congestion, you delay the game. Nope, not at Flyde. From one long queue to another and you miss a few quid's worth of game that you travelled two and a half hours for.

But they do have a suited and booted club official pacing up and down the queue to let you know what's what. In his shoes you can't win, unless you concede that your club should do the one sensible thing and see if you have any fans who can man the turnstiles the old fashioned way. But instead he tells you that this way of getting into grounds is "the future", we'll all be doing it in ten years, "we can have a debate on this if you want", "you should have ordered beforehand", "Chorley brought more and they were fine", and the one that made me want to Yosser Hughes him to the ground: "you should've set off half an hour earlier". What a smarmy, jumped up set of onanists they have running their club.

Seven figures on their squad, eight figures on their ground. Millions no doubt spent elsewhere as well as getting those disillusioned Preston and Blackpool fans through your turnstiles while you still can. Not enough to run turnstiles, not enough to do the logistics for a bogstandard Conference game, not enough to put soap in the bogs. Sure, Financial Fair Play in the football league isn't a perfect system, but clubs who won promotion into it through huge off-field funding have struggled where others haven't. It'll happen to them if it comes.

Full #respect to the Shots fans who travelled much further than us recently for an even more dismal performance, all in that godforsaken place!

Why do you keep comparing yourselves to Lincoln and Tranmere, they’re well supported football clubs. You are not. Your little mate talks about 40,000 shaymen used to watch. So 38,000 fans have deserted you. Why is that? Your the most tinpot real football club I’ve ever witnessed. Tranmere, Wrexham, Leyton Orient are all real well supported football clubs. We know what we are. The sooner you realise what you are the better. Your a slight step up from a half arsed Sunday league team that you find throughout the country renting off the council.

Regarding tickets, you were told to buy tickets in advance. If you’re to moronic to do that then your to blame. We didn’t have these problems when other clubs brought far more fans than you. “Delay kick off” oh yeah, we’ll delay kick off because you idiots don’t do as your told. What is with Halifax fans, every club has one of two idiots but your whole fan base from top to bottom is littered with them. Throwing stuff at players, stealing from Bradley’s bar. The sooner you disappear again the better

 

[Railway Blue]

How many lives have Macclesfield got?

That second goal of Macc was brilliant. I can just see our lot in that situation just standing there and not going for it.

We made Torquay look like Brazil today. Relegation nearly confirmed and well deserved under Bignot. We're in a fight to avoid bottom place which we'll lose.

 

[Railway Blue]

Calling a match off happens it's just frustrating the short notice especially given the distance travelled.

As for Dover... It's not their fault at all however a bit of notice on the weather and a possible pitch inspection would have been good. One thing however not a word of 'sorry' from them to Tranmere. Even their chairman (who is a twat anyway) giving a 2 min interview and refuses to recognise us at all. But then again we're talking about a club that refused to let Tranmere use the club's electricity in the past to treat an injured player!

Macc again with the last min winner is pretty impressive and shows the spirit they have. Boreham Wood, Aldershot and Wrexham all dropped points so top 3 looking good for us now.

Thank God we won't have to play those skunks next season.

 

[B2TF]

The sooner you disappear again the better

And there it is, it's never far from the surface and we noticed it within days of falling into the pub team cess pit in 2008 - the true essence of the Tin Potter, in all its spiteful. rotting, hateful glory.

 

[SomeMightShay]

To avoid any doubt Heed fans. It has been pissing it down all morning in West Yorkshire and John Snow has done feck all to prevent the spread of winter so with Monday's forecast i wouldn't bother making plans for Monday. If you decide to travel and then it gets called off 2 hours before then you only have yourself to blame.
Can't get over how many fans, knowing the current and forecasted weather still plan to travel the length of the country and then cry about it when a referee who we know cares about nobody but himself then does not want to risk the game going ahead.
I

 

[The_Boss]

That second goal of Macc was brilliant. I can just see our lot in that situation just standing there and not going for it.

We made Torquay look like Brazil today. Relegation nearly confirmed and well deserved under Bignot. We're in a fight to avoid bottom place which we'll lose.

Please feel free to roll over on Monday as well. Remember the ground share favour. And how we were so kind to let you sign Andy Halls.

 

[SomeMightShay]

Maidenhead A-A Sutton

I had two games on my six team acca P-P before KO and now this

Beat a very poor Halifax side 2 nil. Don’t remember them having a shot

Next up Barrow

Considering how much money has been spunked on that side Fylde were not much better either. Not sure how they have managed to tonk some good sides. Don't get me wrong but we were terrible (fylde were the better of two shit sides) as soon as we lost Kosylo who was showing sides of causing the Fylde defence problems. With him, MacDonald and Hanley all out we create sod all. And the Guiseley mole Mike Fondant-Topping continues to do his employers dirty work by channeling the spirit of Ali DIa.

 

[SomeMightShay]

I don’t understand why Halifax didn’t play Denton. Fair enough he’s a big lump but he suits the way Halifax play and always causes us problems

Classic case of a new manager freezing out a player without actually trying to use him. Would have been a better option than Tuton who is a shadow of the player we sold.
We're in a position now where a handful of players know they will be shipped out next term regardless of what division we are in. In their place we have a bunch of loanee's who are not going to put their cock on the block for half a dozen games knowing it doesn't affect their future.
This was always a mis-match of a contest against Haythornthwaites mega bucks and we travelled in hope more than expectation. It was the draws against Solihoof and an already doomed Guisly that i still fear will send us down or at the very lest us needing a nerve wrecking final day result in Maidstone.

 

[RLC]

To avoid any doubt Heed fans. It has been pissing it down all morning in West Yorkshire and John Snow has done feck all to prevent the spread of winter so with Monday's forecast i wouldn't bother making plans for Monday. If you decide to travel and then it gets called off 2 hours before then you only have yourself to blame.
Can't get over how many fans, knowing the current and forecasted weather still plan to travel the length of the country and then cry about it when a referee who we know cares about nobody but himself then does not want to risk the game going ahead.
I

It is more the point that clubs should have an inspection on the morning of the game, or the day before, and not leave it until 1.30 pm. Not rocket science really is it ?

 

[Pablosammy]

It is more the point that clubs should have an inspection on the morning of the game, or the day before, and not leave it until 1.30 pm. Not rocket science really is it ?

I think they're saying there was an earlier inspection that said it was playable, but a review at 13:30 changed that. Shit happens, I guess. Not ideal, and more than a little tinpot, but I doubt it's a conspiracy.

 

[JaredSUFC]

It is more the point that clubs should have an inspection on the morning of the game, or the day before, and not leave it until 1.30 pm. Not rocket science really is it ?

Some clubs have an early morning pitch inspection, match is declared on but then abandoned at halftime.

 

[RLC]

Some clubs have an early morning pitch inspection, match is declared on but then abandoned at halftime.

However, that is not the norm. And if you have an early inspection, there is at least the opportunity to call the game off, which there is not if you don't have one.

 

[JaredSUFC]

Some clubs have an early morning pitch inspection, match is declared on but then abandoned at halftime

Or a club organises a pitch inspection and it's passed by a local referee but the match referee declares it unplayable later on when many away fans are in the host town or nearly there.

Both have happened to Sutton in the last couple of months. And we won't have been the only team and support base to have suffered this. One of the joys of grass pitches and British weather (whilst I appreciate 3G is not to everyone's taste I live 200+ miles from Sutton and I've not had to worry about a wasted trip to a home game for 3 years)

 

[SomeMightShay]

I think they're saying there was an earlier inspection that said it was playable, but a review at 13:30 changed that. Shit happens, I guess. Not ideal, and more than a little tinpot, but I doubt it's a conspiracy.

Exactly. If they inspect it three hours earlier and it is wet but playable what choice do officials have but to give go ahead. Maybe clubs should take 1/2 hourly soil samples to check moisture content and employ a full time meteorologist to give advice on future saturation levels? This isn't aimed at Tranmere fans, all season long fans have been moaning that it was 'obvious weather was going to worsen' but not obvious enough to make them think twice about travelling.

 

[SomeMightShay]

It is more the point that clubs should have an inspection on the morning of the game, or the day before, and not leave it until 1.30 pm. Not rocket science really is it ?

So if they call the game off at 9am but then the forecast is wrong and it spends the next 6 hours dry would you still be pissed off?

 

[RLC]

So if they call the game off at 9am but then the forecast is wrong and it spends the next 6 hours dry would you still be pissed off?

No, because I would only be making one journey to Dover rather than two. And in the vast majority of cases, what you have suggested does not happen.

 

[RLC]

Exactly. If they inspect it three hours earlier and it is wet but playable what choice do officials have but to give go ahead.

They did not inspect it three hours earlier. That is the point I was making.

I don't know what the rules are with regard to anticipated conditions, but if a pitch is obviously going to be unplayable in an hour's time due to a poor forecast, it should be in a referee's gift to call the game off.

 

[Pliny Harris]

Why do you keep comparing yourselves to Lincoln and Tranmere, they’re well supported football clubs. You are not. Your little mate talks about 40,000 shaymen used to watch. So 38,000 fans have deserted you. Why is that? Your the most tinpot real football club I’ve ever witnessed. Tranmere, Wrexham, Leyton Orient are all real well supported football clubs. We know what we are. The sooner you realise what you are the better. Your a slight step up from a half arsed Sunday league team that you find throughout the country renting off the council.

Regarding tickets, you were told to buy tickets in advance. If you’re to moronic to do that then your to blame. We didn’t have these problems when other clubs brought far more fans than you. “Delay kick off” oh yeah, we’ll delay kick off because you idiots don’t do as your told. What is with Halifax fans, every club has one of two idiots but your whole fan base from top to bottom is littered with them. Throwing stuff at players, stealing from Bradley’s bar. The sooner you disappear again the better

We're entirely untroubled that a load of people whose idea of a football club is a Qatar 2022-style white elephant for them to leap upon in the 2016/17 season and abandon as soon as their chairman does, should see us as tinpot. I would normally give a toss about away fans causing trouble, but if one of your merry bunch gets his top hat nicked he can simply walk over to the back room and come out wearing another top hat. Our modest core fan base has stood up for itself for all time, while yours will soon be back to the golf course on a drab slab of land that's about to be fracked into the sea. All the best.

 

[SomeMightShay]

They did not inspect it three hours earlier. That is the point I was making.

I don't know what the rules are with regard to anticipated conditions, but if a pitch is obviously going to be unplayable in an hour's time due to a poor forecast, it should be in a referee's gift to call the game off.

I was offering a hypothetical scenario. What IF they call it off early and then the forecast turns out to be wrong (which it invariably is).

 

[RLC]

I was offering a hypothetical scenario. What IF they call it off early and then the forecast turns out to be wrong (which it invariably is).

Short-term forecasts are something like 90% correct.

It is still the correct decision in my view. We had a similar scenario a few weeks ago when our game against Gateshead was called off 24 hours in advance and there was some suggestion the pitch was actually playable on the Saturday. The forecast was so poor, it was still sensible to call the game off rather than taking the risk.

In the Football League clubs seem to more risk averse and take earlier decisions, which is why you get relatively few of these incidents. Down here the attitude seems to be 'leave it until the last moment and keep our fingers crossed' (probably to preserve revenues).

 

[SomeMightShay]

We're entirely untroubled that a load of people whose idea of a football club is a Qatar 2022-style white elephant for them to leap upon in the 2016/17 season and abandon as soon as their chairman does, should see us as tinpot. I would normally give a toss about away fans causing trouble, but if one of your merry bunch gets his top hat nicked he can simply walk over to the back room and come out wearing another top hat. Our modest core fan base has stood up for itself for all time, while yours will soon be back to the golf course on a drab slab of land that's about to be fracked into the sea. All the best.

Whilst it is artificial fast tracked success. Oppostion fans have to accept that it has mostly come about because of a chairman with an opposite view of running a football club to one further down the road. The 'they'll be fucked when the money goes' argument was aimed at Fleetwood for years but investment in infrastructure means that they would likely survive in the FL now if Pilley walked away tomorrow. Many fans would love FFP in non-league but it is just a manageble system that the wealthy can circumvent if they so desire. Look no further than the top of the Premier League for evidence of this.

 

[SomeMightShay]

Short-term forecasts are something like 90% correct.

It is still the correct decision in my view. We had a similar scenario a few weeks ago when our game against Gateshead was called off 24 hours in advance and there was some suggestion the pitch was actually playable on the Saturday. The forecast was so poor, it was still sensible to call the game off rather than taking the risk.

In the Football League clubs seem to more risk averse and take earlier decisions, which is why you get relatively few of these incidents. Down here the attitude seems to be 'leave it until the last moment and keep our fingers crossed' (probably to preserve revenues).

It has forecast rain (heavy at times) all day in Huddersfield yet it has just been occasional light drizzle. Weather forecasts are wrong more than they are right when it comes to rainfall.

 

[SomeMightShay]

Short-term forecasts are something like 90% correct.

It is still the correct decision in my view. We had a similar scenario a few weeks ago when our game against Gateshead was called off 24 hours in advance and there was some suggestion the pitch was actually playable on the Saturday. The forecast was so poor, it was still sensible to call the game off rather than taking the risk.

In the Football League clubs seem to more risk averse and take earlier decisions, which is why you get relatively few of these incidents. Down here the attitude seems to be 'leave it until the last moment and keep our fingers crossed' (probably to preserve revenues).

Well this is tinpot non league where money is tight for most. Do you see the logic in giving games as much chance as possible? If you want a FL approach i suggest you have a word with those who got you relegated and those who continue to keep you in this division whilst letting a club without a pot to piss in and unpaid players romp their way to the title with less than half the budget you have.

 

[RLC]

Well this is tinpot non league where money is tight for most. Do you see the logic in giving games as much chance as possible? If you want a FL approach i suggest you have a word with those who got you relegated and those who continue to keep you in this division whilst letting a club without a pot to piss in and unpaid players romp their way to the title with less than half the budget you have.

Fair enough, but you are just making my point for me. Not sure why you are so bitter.

I would say that late postponements don't matter when they involve clubs with no fans (part of the reason why clubs at this level don't care much when it happens), but that would be below the belt.

 

[Pliny Harris]

Whilst it is artificial fast tracked success. Oppostion fans have to accept that it has mostly come about because of a chairman with an opposite view of running a football club further down the road. The 'they'll be fucked when the money goes' argument was aimed at Fleetwood for years but investment in infrastructure means that they would likely survive in the FL now if Pilley walked away tomorrow. Many fans would love FFP in non-league but it is just a manageble system that the wealthy can circumvent if they so desire. Look no further than the top of the Premier League for evidence of this.

It's as effectual as the powers want it to be, really. Like the days when company cars were handed out to executives instead of pay rises. On the other hand, it's made Forest Green's hop and stip into League 1 a little trickier and at least Fleetwood's part of a wider sprawl attached to some neighbours whose football club is run by the indefensible, while Flyde's support is based on 10 straight seasons of promotion pushes, further disgruntled tangerines, curious Prestonians and incentives.

When that fog lifts, the light of day will show a club more like Ferriby than the likes of Fleetwood or Crawley, who have both peaked. A community of 10,000 isn't going to turn up for a football club thick or thin and the only historical exception I can think of is Ross County.