Non-League Day, the day where the glamour of the Premier League and the higher leagues in the English football pyramid is set aside and people everywhere are brought to the attention of what their local club has to offer. That day is Saturday 10th October 2015, tomorrow!
About Non-League Day
Non-League Day was set up as a social media experiment by James Doe in 2010 after he was inspired after travelling to Devon to watch Queens Park Rangers play Tavistock. His experiment has been incredibly successful and quickly became a part of the football calender and accepted by; Premier League and Football League Clubs, MP's, Celebrities, Media Organisations, Charities and most importantly the Non-League clubs and all their supporters. It has always coincided with an international break as there will be no Premier League and Championship games and fewer League One and Two games meaning Non-League Clubs have the perfect opportunity to bring local people's attention to the importance of affordable volunteer led community football while giving people an opportunity to show support for their local club.
Why should you go support your local team?
Other than the obvious answer which is because it's your local team, there are many reasons why you should go support your local team. I personally am of the belief that your local team should be the main team you support but with the glamour of the Premier League, that belief is not shared by everyone and many local teams are not recognised. Money taken at the turnstiles of many Non-League clubs often funds thriving youth set-ups, projects and facilities that not only benefit the club itself but it also can benefit your whole community so the little money you spend to watch the game can make a massive difference to your area. Some benefits of Non-League football are ; the vast majority of games will still be at 3pm, ticket prices are much cheaper for most teams, you can stand anywhere in the ground and move position at any time and also you will be almost guaranteed a warm welcome by people who run their local clubs due to their love of the game. Many clubs look to this day to offer reduced admittance prices to fans of higher league clubs and incentives are also offered to get fans to watch. An example of this is what happened in August 2014 when Bungay Town handing out mushrooms to supporters attending their match against Martham in the Anglian Combination Division Two which led to their normal match day attendance being doubled to 100. Don't worry if you don't like mushrooms though, I'm sure there will be other incentives offered.
What else can YOU do?
The main thing you can do is spread the word. Tell your family, friends and anyone you think would be interested in supporting their local team. I would recommend you go with a group of people in order to get full enjoyment out of the game by sharing the experience with others.
For more information about Non-League Day and to use a Match Finder to find a game in your area, click on the link below.
http://www.nonleagueday.co.uk/map.html
My Opinion
I think the idea of Non-League Day is brilliant and it is crucial to the football calendar and to many non-league clubs. I highly recommend that you go to watch your local club tomorrow if you don't already and you may be pleasantly surprised by what you see. There are FA Cup qualifying rounds tomorrow as well as league games so it would be worth checking to see if your local team is still in the competition and it would be well worth watching them on the journey to see if they can get to the First Round. Having watched my local team in the Conference and now this season in the Midland Premier League, I can tell you that in both of these leagues, although the quality is not what you'd see in the Premier League on television, Non-League football is very entertaining to watch as the majority of games are unpredictable as anyone can beat anyone. The passion of the players is also evident in these lower leagues as they are not on ridiculous money per week and most of them are part-time players and are playing because they love the game and it's admirable to watch how hard these players try to win at times and it really gets a crowd behind him and the atmosphere at
Non-League games can be phenomenal. I'll be watching my local team tomorrow, the question is, will you be watching yours?
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