Leeds United manager Marcelo Bielsa makes himself comfortable on his bucket on the sidelines. Alamy
The Argentinian may have left Elland Road in February but his lasting impact left supporters scrambling to collect any memento they could of his time there
by Steve Leach
Bennion Keaney Ltd, £11.99
Reviewed by Matthew Gooding
From WSC 329 July 2014
Often erroneously likened to a fifth division of the Football League, the Football Conference could more accurately be described as a halfway house. Non-League’s top tier is home to a curious mix of teams; professional clubs who have fallen on hard times compete alongside new names making their way up the pyramid and getting a first taste of the big time.
Into this world steps Steve Leach, a Manchester City fan who, having grown disillusioned with the commercialisation and “over-paid prima donnas” of the Premier League, decides to focus his attentions on non-League instead. Conference Season is a diary of his travels around the country in the 2012-13 season, during which he takes in a match at every Conference club as he bids to “rediscover the soul of professional football”.
Throughout the book you get the impression that the author yearns for the days of his youth in the 1950s and 1960s, when top-level football matches were attended by thousands of working-class folk from their local community. Large crowds and red-hot atmosphere are certainly not in abundance in the Conference, and Leach’s wish to paint the league as a window to a glorious bygone era means he ignores the fact that it is a competition which is often as distorted by money and egotistical owners as the Premier League he wants to leave behind. As a result, Hyde’s tie-in with Manchester City, where they were paid to change their club colours to sky blue and remove the “United” part of their name, is briefly mentioned but not subjected to any critical analysis. Ditto an acrimonious boardroom split he encounters at Macclesfield, while the many battles for control of the author’s hometown club Stockport County, which sparked their rapid descent through the divisions from League One to the Conference North, are not touched on at all.
We rarely hear from fans of the teams involved. When Leach does engage them in conversation, it tends to be on matters of player selection and form, rather than looking at the joys of supporting a non-League side and the role their club plays in the community. As a result, the whole affair feels somewhat distant, and all we are left with are a series of clunky anecdotes and the author’s glib and often patronising observations; seasoned non-League supporters will enjoy his amazement at the fact that two sets of fans can co-exist in the same bar without resorting to violence, or that some games of football are played without crowd segregation.
Leach is a professor of Local Government, and it becomes apparent this is where his expertise lie as he describes the growth, and in some cases decline, of the towns he visits with passion and insight. It’s a shame that the football side of Conference Season rarely delivers either of these qualities.
Mike Whalley takes a look at Hyde’s terrible winless runScott McNiven is, by his own admission, hard to live with when he isn’t winning. The manager of Hyde, the Conference Premier’s bottom club by a mile, can barely remember what victory feels like. Twenty-six league games have brought no wins and just three points. The New Year opened with an unwanted record beckoning: no team in Conference history, going back to 1979, has gone through a whole season without a league win. McNiven’s wife Adele is enduring a lot of gloomy weekends. “She’s very understanding, especially as I don’t really speak to her on Saturday evenings now,” he says. “I’m not in the best mood for conversation after a defeat.”
Dear WSC
Gavin Duenas asks why WSC readers want standing areas in football grounds (Letters, WSC 300). My reasons are purely selfish. Maybe then the people stand in front of me and my two young boys “because you can only support your team properly from a standing position” will go to the terraces and leave us to sit and enjoy an unobstructed view from our expensive seats.There should be a choice for all supporters between sitting and safe standing. Yet as a frequent away supporter in “all-seater” stadiums, the choice of sitting doesn’t actually exist. You are forced into unsafe standing in seating areas if you want to to see anything of the game. Woe betide you if you point out that if everybody sits, everybody sees. Oh for the joy of Huish Park and London Road, where thanks to the terraces you can still sit in comfort.
Andrew Bartlett, Kenilworth
Macclesfield were in financial disarray when they entered the Football League, but they still managed to win a second consecutive promotion, writes Michael Whalley Just getting to the starting line was an achievement. One week before their first season in the Football League began, Macclesfield Town received a High Court writ from the creditors of their late chairman’s business demanding more than £500,000. This is not generally how promotion seasons begin. Yet nine months later, Macc went up from Division Three at the first attempt. As cheesy as it might sound now, there were times during the 1997-98 season when it seemed as if the motto on Efe Sodje’s bandana – “Against All Odds” – could have applied to the club.