Jamie Rainbow checks out non-league on the web, plus a look at some of the more interesting unofficial club sites

The Non-League on the Net site was recommended by someone who feared it was in danger of closing down due to lack of interest. It shouldn’t do, as in terms of content and appearance it’s got more to offer than your average club site. Furthermore, if you follow a non-League side, you’re more likely to find out information about them here than anywhere else. There’s plenty of it, too, not just on the Conference but on the feeder leagues and beyond.

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Dave Espley remembers a time when his beloved Stockport County players would arrive at the ground using much simpler methods

It was my dad who first disillusioned me. It was teatime in the mid-Seventies, and I was watching The Tomorrow People. He arrived home from work and dropped the bombshell. “I’ve just seen Johnny Griffiths in Mersey Square.” Johnny Griffiths? Scorer of a fantastic 13 goals in 1972-73? The man who personified all that was glamorous about Seventies football to my prepubescent eyes? Wow! Must affect nonchalance. “Yeah? What was he doing?” Casing the centre of Stockport for a site for his new boutique? Cutting the ribbon of the new Tesco? 

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Though considered a relatively recent phenomenon, Matthew Taylor throws light upon the role agents have played in football through the years

Alf Common didn’t make much money when he moved from Sunderland to Middlesbrough as the first £1,000 footballer in 1905. In fact, it is not clear that he ­ben­efit­ed at all. The Teesside club acquired a powerful ­cen­tre-forward who helped to keep them in the First Division and the Wearsiders received a hefty cheque in return. Restricted by the maximum wage law, all Common officially made out of the transaction was his £10 signing-on fee. Things would have been different, one suspects, if he had had an agent.

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Ray Bloomfield explains to Andy Lyons how he was the middle man in certain deals and that not all agents are bad guys

The easiest way to describe what I do is that I am a go-between. I watch several matches a week, sometimes as many as ten. If a club is looking for a particular type of player, I have a look around and try to find them.

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Andy Lyons talks to Rachel Anderson about being the only FIFA registered female agent, her clients and taking on the PFA

In the relationship between clubs and players it used to be that clubs held the upper hand. Has the balance now shifted in the players’ favour?
Only for a small minority. The majority of players are still paid slaves.There’s no freedom of movement until they’re 25, they can get fined two weeks’ wages for whatever misdemeanour the clubs decide. Clubs have always had it their way but there is an emerging sense now that clubs, players and agents have to work together. Even if I can’t agree on a contract with a club I still have to be able to do business with them. It’s no good anyone making impossible demands, so if I do a deal for a player it has to be something that the club can afford. Straight away, as soon as a deal is done, that boy has got so much pressure on him. If he doesn’t score the goals or stop them going in, he’s dumped and that doesn’t do me any good, or him. Backing the club into a corner over terms isn’t a very clever thing for an agent to do and the people who do that are here today gone tomorrow. Though when I first started people probably thought I was going to be like that and in fact I probably thought I was too.

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