Dreaming your life away. We're all guilty of it, yet is it screening us from a reality we neither want to see nor accept? The Boy from Ipanema tries to reach the truth, painful as it may be, of Conference soccer.
I'm sure I'm not the only soccer fan who suffers from the affliction of day dreaming. FA Cup Fourth Round: Manchester United 1 Southport 1. Replay: Southport 1 Manchester United 1 (aet) Southport win 4-3 on penalties. This plum fourth round tie, of course, came after humiliating Wigan Athletic 7-0 in the second round and beating Preston North End in a five goal thriller after being two nil down with only 10 minutes left on the clock. How many Woking fans dream of beating Arsenal in the same manner? And wouldn't Yeovil's hoards of devoted followers love to see them do one over Bristol City?
So, it begs the question; Why do we (the sane intelligent people that we are) allow ourselves to be led down this path of trickery and worthless, time wasting fantasy? Maybe the average non-league fan is at heart one of the last true romantics, and who am I, as one of the greatest sinners around, to bring these people back down to earth with a bump by telling them that there is more chance of them being kicked to death by a blind donkey whilst on holiday in Tuscany than witnessing Doncaster Rovers making a mockery of Leeds United at Elland Road on a freezing Sunday afternoon in front of millions of viewers on Sky TV.
If you see one of these in the grounds of your Tuscany villa, take a wide path around it! At the beginning of the season, on Internet forums covering the spectrum of the rainbow, fans across the country were seen to be raising their respective teams to championship contenders. Doncaster Rovers "Look who we've bought, we're gonna wipe you lot off the park". Boston United - "We're new here, but won't be around long 'cause we're going straight up to Division Three". Stevenage Borough - "Paul Fairclough is our messiah" (a clear case of Howard Kendall syndrome if ever I saw one). Dover Athletic - "We're top after the first game and that is where we're going to stay". Blah blah blah blah blah. What I'm trying to say is that yes, we would all love to see our team crowned as champions, but who, if it came to the crunch would put their lives on it?
The way I see it, the only club in this division whose fans should be confident of promotion at the beginning of the season is Rushden and Diamonds. They are streets ahead of the rest in terms of resources and professionalism. The only reason they are not currently in Division Two is the seemingly incompetence of Coach, Brian Talbot, who has seen his side pipped at the post by Halifax, Cheltenham and Kidderminster and yet somehow continues to live on to fight another day. If the army is considering a review of it's survival courses, surely Mr. Talbot should be recruited as a highly experienced consultant. The rest of us just have to sit and wait, and watch R&D make another hash of it, hoping that our team is in second place to take advantage of yet another lost opportunity at Nene Park.
Promotion for Halifax, Cheltenham and Kidderminster was welcomed, yet hardly expected. At the beginning of each season, the odds were long on each of these teams winning the division, and few fans would have been willing to bet more than a few pounds on their team being in first place in May. This goes to show that although each of us may harbour fantasies of a place in the Football League, we don't truthfully expect it to be achieved. There are currently 22 teams in the Conference, each chasing the holy grail of top spot which would ensure promotion. If and when the League agrees to one or more extra promotion places, we will be in a more realistic position to say; "Yes, now my team has a real chance".
Some teams of course will never have that chance, even if twelve promotion spots were on offer. Without wanting to be cruel, Forest Green Rovers for example will probably never grace the membership list of the Football League. I believe, as with everything else in life, that a football club has a peak. A point at which it can realistically go no further. Macclesfield for example gained successive promotions and reached Division Two. That was their peak. They will go no further. Wycombe may reach Division One, but then along with the likes of Port Vale, Tranmere and Crewe Alexander will find the next promotion opportunity out of reach.
So, where does each club peak? Some have already reached that point (FGR, Sutton, Kingstonian etc.), others, who have bigger fan base potentials and room to build greater stadia will probably go as far as Division Two, as happened with Macclesfield and Barnet. Currently, there are only three teams I can see with the potential to go one step higher to Division One, those being Rushden, Yeovil and Doncaster. I think the fans of Conference clubs already realise this and if asked to respond honestly to the question; "Where would you like to be this time next year?" The vast majority would reply, "Right here, where we are at the moment". 
Status Quo - Seventies rock band and all Conference clubs' secret ambition. Whilst we all dream of seeing our team lift the championship trophy, what we all really crave is status quo. The maintenance of our current position. We dread relegation to the squalor of the feeder leagues, where we would lose the scrap of respect we at least possess in the Conference. Leigh RMI fans are currently revelling in the "I told you so" factor. Everybody's favourites to go straight back down have been surprising so many teams, week in week out, that it is no longer a surprise. However, if at the beginning of the season, the gods had offered the Railwaymen 19th place come May, they would have snatched it from their holy hands without a second thought. Forest Green, Hayes and Northwich Victoria would do similar, whilst the majority, although moaning and calling for peoples' heads, would happily settle for mid table obscurity.
When we look at life through sober eyes (which for many Conference fans is not often), we just want to be left alone. We know we shall never reach the FA Carling Premiership, and in our heart of hearts, do we really want to? I know for one, that if Southport won promotion (which could well happen one of these days) I would be sad to leave the Conference behind. Wouldn't it be nice if we could all go together, hand in hand, just like one big happy family? Conference clubs and their fans have personality, individuality and a certain eccentricity, which can be carried forward to Divisions Three and Two, but is then lost, as you become engulfed in the crowds of dispassionate prawn sandwich eaters.
Dreaming takes us away from the need to accept what is real. And yes, I will continue of dreaming of a Southport win against Manchester United, yet I would never want Southport TO BE Manchester United, with the horror of all the success that that would entail. 
"The Sandgrounders were just too strong for us. Mike Marsh ran rings around Becks." E-mail The Boy from Ipanema with your thoughts on this column. |
