Penalty for Success

[bigfoot]

I had a conversation at the end of last season with another Hawks fan about our chances of promotion and our feelings about how different it would be if we did get to the conf national.

Just interested in other peoples opinions, mine was along the lines of that whilst I want success for the team and club, I would then have to sacrifice most of what makes non-league so special - ie no segregation, mainly very friendly fans, visits to places and teams that I have often not heard of (mainly through the cups). The cost would go up, the 'sportsmanship' would increase etc etc.

So what do you chaps think?

[Col ISIHAC.]

Going by what has been said on here before - and please feel free to elaborate folks - the pormised land of BS National is not all it's cracked up to be.

When this forum first started we had a few users from Hereford and Stevenage, for example, who reckoned they wanted a place to play which wasn't frequented by popmous g1ts with an unjustified superiority complex. They don't come here any more - we are "Tinpot"!!

Our esteemed pals from Stafford, Tammuff, Salisbury - who have been there, got the T shirt and in some cases bailed out again after a one or two year sojourn, do say that, having got there; it's not clear why anyone would want to!

People like you & I, Bigfoot - who want to get there - reserve the right to decide whether promotion would be that poisoned chalice or not; but I do personally think that we'd be looked down upon - away following; all being part-time Pompey fans; chavs etc etc and metaphorically patted on the head by clubs which think their rightful place is in League 2!

It seems to me that the footballing ladder has a rung or two missing nowadays. The leap between BS South / North and National seems a big one. Some clubs get there, leave and suffer for years as a result. Others go bust just trying to get there. It's not on a par with the Premiership & Championship - that's just stupid, but at its own level, this league of ours is a bit of a monster.

[skif]

Is this an all-Hawk thread?

We fellas in the Hawk London Branch debate this long and often on the way to games. Indeed, I've just written a piece about the FA Cup for the Conf South Guide blog pages, which I’ll publish next week, which references the double-edge sword of wanting promotion.

Yet I still fancy giving it a try, playing in a national league and all – beano to Torquay anyone? Certainly I would hate to be ambition-less, but yet I too fear the loss of what makes watching semi-pro football special – segregation being key to that.

So, as much as I want us to make it there at some point, I won’t feel unfulfilled if we never do.

[Meadow]

As a Dons fan, I'm in a different position to the rest of you. Having seen a rise up the leagues once, I'm keen for the team to do so again.
However, from a purely selfish point of view, I don't want them to go too much further. I love the cameraderie of tinpot, and TBH, I can't afford the travel costs, lack of family time and higher entry charges that inevitably goes with league football. My support of WFC consisted of 3 or 4 home matches a season, I couldn't afford any more. With AFCW, I'm at most Saturday home matches, some weeknight home matches, and the occasional away match.

[peekay]

We spent most of the 90's being decently competitive in the Unibond Premier (when it was still step 2).
We managed 2 seasons in the Conference but the club has only gone backwards since, with 3 relegations in 9 years and almost going out of business altogether 4 times over that period.
It would be nice to at least climb back up a division or two though. It's much harder to find out results this season.

[amberaleman]

I started following Sutton in the late eighties when we were in the Conference (as it was then called). Things were very different then. Automatic promotion to the Football League had only just been introduced (it was one up, one down then), almost all the clubs were part-time, and three figure attendances were commonplace.

Although there were sound reasons for introducing automatic promotion, the consequent influx of clubs relegated from the League has had a huge impact on the top of the non-League pyrmaid. As well as swelling attendances (which in turn encourages segregation), these clubs choose to remain full-time, forcing ambitious outfits like Stevenage, Weymouth and Woking to follow suit in order to compete. As a result, the minority of part-time clubs left in the Blue Square Premier tend to struggle (though it's nice to see Burton Albion bucking the trend).

I still think it's a wonderful league, if only for its sheer diversity - who'd have thought ten years ago that Oxford United and Wrexham would be competing at the same level as Histon and Lewes? I still try to attend at least a couple of BSP matches each season, and hope to get to Mansfield and Wrexham (both new grounds for me) before next May.