If you’re a betting man, then at this time of the season you must have nerves of steel. Very few leagues are clear cut in terms of their winners and many have yet to see relegation places determined either. But it’s not just the man with the ticket whose watching and waiting, supporters are the ones really invested in every kick, every header and every moment affecting the teams around them.
For a neutral and a lover of non-league football high and low it’s the perfect time to grab the popcorn and wait for the outcome. The business end of the season, squeaky bum time, whatever you wish to call it, has given us just a few games left to savour.
30-40 games in the record books and still pages to be written across the country, the double helpings of Easter weekend to come when that four days might spark the mother of all celebrations or set the collective grasping of heads in hands.
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I do a lot of neutral watching as you well know, I like to see friends of the game doing well but not everyone can season upon season. The time when we see who can hold their nerve, who can eek out the points needed and whose left it too late to make a run.
Can you imagine where we’d be without the play-off’s as well? Excitement for most would have been over weeks ago, top two going up and the rest trailing in the distance.
For four clubs the excitement has ramped up a little more this weekend with the finalists now known for the Isuzu FA Trophy and FA Vase. Aldershot Town, Spennymoor Town, AFC Whyteleafe and Whitstable Town will head to Wembley Stadium in May with three of those four not having been there before.
The odd ones out in Spennymoor Town I’ve previously seen lift the Vase in 2013, not many clubs have lifted both trophies, they would join an elite list. The last time I saw a National League North side in the Trophy final they won it, an omen perhaps?
The Shots I write for in their matchday programme, a great put together publication from Victoria Rodgers and their first time under the arch to come.
AFC Whyteleafe since reforming are riding the crest of a wave, I saw the old version before a landlord dispute led to the club disbanding and starting again lower down the pyramid.
Whitstable Town are heading down Wembley Way but also well in the race for the Southern Counties East Premier Division play-offs too, like their Vase counterparts one of these sides could well lift the trophy but be unable to defend it if they’ve secured Step 4 football in the weeks before.
But before these sides get to the arch everything else will have been decided, well until one or two decide they want voluntary relegation or ground graders rear their heads and there’s a few who must be sweating on decisions.
Some divisions it appears no side wants to win promotion, namely the National League North and South, sides taking points off each other and next to none securing play-off places for that very reason.
The top position keeps swopping on a weekly basis in the Isthmian Premier Division, excitement full stop for those watching in but not for those in the thick of it.
So many people will point and say the standard is lower because one team isn’t running away with it, but that’s the point of football, competition. It’s not the Premier League where the odds are on no more than four sides likely to win a major trophy, the same sides competing in Europe.
It’s why more and more are coming away from the VAR riddled, overpriced level of football and turning to where football is actually still the game of the people and those watching, please never change.
