I’m a happy football fan this morning after my beloved Manchester City defeated Crystal Palace 4-0 to move into second place on the English Premier League table, with a game in hand. Manchester United may be on top, but the stats show it’s probably going to come down to City and Liverpool for the third year in a row.
The thing about supporting Manchester City is we don’t take anything for granted. It wasn’t too long ago that City were packing out grounds against Grimsby, Macclesfield, Gillingham and others. It was during this time that I gained a true respect for football clubs that bounce around the divisions in the league, and sometimes fall out of the league altogether.
I’m lucky that I get to talk about a few of these clubs on my sports segment on radio 2GN (www.2gn.com.au) each week. We have spoken about the happiest place in England, Harrogate, and their promotion to the league for the first time in their 106 year history.
Or Stockport County, who are fourth in the fifth tier National League as I write this. Stockport is where my great grandmother Edith Dawson was born. She moved to Manchester to marry Thomas Geddes before they moved to Australia. Stockport is also the unlikely passion of a Japanese supporter who spent his life savings travelling to England (pre-COVID) to watch his beloved Hatters.
This week we saw Chorley advance in the FA Cup. Chorley play in the sixth tier National League North League alongside clubs such as Spennymoor Town, Blyth Spartans, and Brackley Town. And of course there is Marine FC, which though belted 5-0 by Tottenham, won the hearts of the nation. The eighth tier club sold eight times the number of virtual tickets than they could ever have under normal circumstances.
Sure, you may love your Arsenal or Chelsea; or your Manchester United or Liverpool. But I strongly encourage all football fans to latch onto a team in a lower division to ride their fortunes throughout the season. I’ve got my eye on Brentford - fourth in the Championship at time of writing, looking for their first ever promotion to the Premier League.
But I also keep an eye on Stockport and Harrogate and Charlton Athletic and Gillingham and Grimsby Town and Stevenage and several others. It just makes the football season much more fun.
Enjoy!