You should look into the FA cup. In some ways it’s pyramidal like the league, but it allows for bizarre success stories where a bunch of part-time fat lads end up playing at premier league clubs, including Manchester United because they somehow overcome all of the odds. It’s an economic bonus for lower league clubs to get as far as possible, as they get a share of the ticket receipts, and those top tier clubs have large fan bases (which is also why those games are always played in the larger club’s stadium – it’s just not safe to try and play a game in some 500 seater shack) and from prize money.
Remember though: There are over 7,000 teams in the English league system, as opposed to the set number of 32 in the NFL. And although Green Bay or Buffalo might be “the worst” in the league (I assume), someone always has to be, and these clubs are still major national “brands” that almost everyone in the US knows about and all have 70k seater stadium, whereas most people wouldn’t know of teams like my current local side Histon (Actually Histon is a terrible example as they now have a fancy league-capable stadium. It used to be a 150 seater ramshackle shack).
I need to watch this show, as it’s basically how I play the Championship Manager games: Choose the worst team possible and try and get them to the top.
There are lots of Stories like Wrexham, where an injection of cash seems a town from nowhereton become professional and start climbing the ladder. Good examples are Swindon FC, Wigan Athletic, AFC Wimbledon,
The local side in the town I grew up that I played some under-12 games for* used to play on an empty field with a nearby shack they heated the pies and tea in. They were below tier 11 of the system, aka the official bottom. After an injection of cash from a local business tycoon, they rebranded as AFC Fylde, built a new £150k stadium, and then an even bigger £35m stadium, and tried to climb to the national league (tier 5 – where Wrexham are). They just about made it, but seem to have petered out in 2019 and have just been relegated out again.
*The criteria to join was basically “please show up”, which I stopped doing as it turned out you could play football on computers now and everything.
Meanwhile, my team Oxford United are facing Arsenal tonight, which means they are on terrestrial TV for the first time in ages. Unfortunately a similar upset is extremely unlikely.
That probably worked out for Rob as the finish of that game was real squeaky bum time for Wrexham fans.
After dumping Mighty Rotherham out over the weekend, my lot have drawn Mighty Burnely in round four. Hopefully Burnley decide to focus on their push for promotion back to the Premier League and play all their kids in the cup.
When Wrexham drew Coventry in the third round Striker Ollie Palmer said the team weren’t thrilled as they were hoping to face a big team.
This despite Coventry being involved in one of the best FA Cup finals of my youth.
The thumbnail is a spoiler, so I’ve linked to the kick off of the 1987 Cup final here.
One fun moment from ‘87 is that a mix-up with the kit meant that less than half the Spurs’ starting eleven had the sponsor’s name on the front of their shirts. Six players played in plain white.
Good player Ollie Palmer, played for the Mighty Imps at league 2 level (and scored against Coventry twice when we beat them on our way to promotion so he knows how “big” a club Coventry is) also Wrexham have Mullin who was League 2 player of the season in 20-21 and is rumoured to be on 5k a week.
Wrexham aren’t an underdog in the National League, they are the top dog and really should have been promoted last season.
Yeah, it’s difficult in a UK football context to view any team as an underdog when they are bought by rich owners and have money pumped into them. Most teams at the lower levels don’t have that luxury (or if they do, the rich owners turn out to be conmen).
Speaking of which, it was kind of farcical listening to the ITV commentators talk about Oxford’s quest for a new stadium, and how the Kassam was holding the club back. Even with only three sides we rarely sell out and it feels quiet and soulless compared to the Manor. We do need somewhere new, but I worry we’re going to end up with a 20,000 seater white elephant that usually only has 5,000 fans in it.
As someone who loves chaos I want to see what season three of the documentary looks like if Notts County hold on to win the National League and Wrexham lose out in the playoffs again. Can we turn the series into a Welsh Tragedy with Deadpool as Agamemnon.
I thought the problem with the Kassam was you pay ridiculous rent to Kassam himself? I’m assuming you garner no benefit from the surrounding rents for those facilities he built on the same site either?
I can confirm from my many visits there as an Imps fan that soulless definitely describes the atmosphere though!
Correct. The capacity is not a problem, unless maybe we get into the Championship, but honestly even then I’m not sure Oxford can sustain a Championship side.
And we have a premier date for season 2 here in the States: September 12.
If you enjoyed Season 1 and have somehow managed to stay spoiler free on how Wrexham fared last season…well, just another few months to stay in the dark. Season 2 is going to be kind of amazing.
