Finnaldo

Thinking of strolling down to AP although St Andrews is also appealing…

Could be an interesting summer for non-league in the west of the county. Surely Ginnelly can’t carry on at Barwell who will have to adapt to life at step 4, and presumably lose their best players. Meanwhile question marks over if they’ll even be a Leicester Road FC next season after pretty strong rumours swirling about and talks of playing staff and players all looking to walk now the season is over. Suppose we’ll see, but that’s probably a manager swap made in heaven

Danylyszyn. Don’t know much about the bloke but he seems to be everywhere, and has a bad rap that follows him. From where I’ve seen his name in the wild and a very cursory google search I can tell he’s been in recent years: Rushden & Diamonds, Gresley, Basford, Nuneaton Borough and Barwell. That’s all in about three years too

First season at step 5 on target for Hinckley with a top half finish and reasonably competitive for the play offs but until the last five or six, learning points is that the top three are just head and shoulders above us, both on the pitch and with the funding off it. Mental to think at Step 9 of the English pyramid you’ve got teams spending upwards of £2,000 a week! Three very good outfits however, and even though they’ll likely be favourites I’m still not sure AP will get over the line. Only hope is past Eynesbury it’s a Rugby Borough who have had a very poor second half of the season and a March who aren’t quite their level. Will be behind them as it’d be great to have another Leicestershire, especially within city borders, go up and increase the representation at the right end of non-league, and secondly cos it gets them away from us! Next year could shape up interestingly, Nuneaton all but confirmed, both Rugby clubs assuming AP are up, potentially Atherstone over (but I can see them going up). A few very decent local derbies with good attendances you’d expect, and a good opportunity to up the profile of the club in those games. Will be a big summer too commercially looking to keep progressing as sustainably as possible!

Even a couple seasons ago, they’d just got promoted to step 4 with good gates and were looking up on and off the pitch with a big ground move on the cards as well… but that became a money sink and the managerial choices came to roost. Now the ground is called off and they’re having to fight off relegation to step 6.

I, for one, am absolutely shocked a football agent thinks Rudkin is the best thing since sliced bread.

Disappointed such an obvious WUM got such a tremendous bite

Was looking up a couple early 2010s indie bands and was interested to see their main pictures on Wikipedia were from the old Summer Sundae Festival on the De Monfort Hall grounds, apparently clothe last one 2012 but the wiki article didn’t say why and I can’t find anything else on it shutting up shop, anyone know why? Seemed like it had a pretty interesting line-up of American and English alternative and indie bands.

The more time passes the more it looks like an unceremonious dumping of the club, I’m hoping there’s been time to rally and give the league a go next season. I can sympathise on the money aspect to be fair. Hinckley are a decent-sized team at step 5 and it’s already looking a mammoth task to be going up and sponsorship is a a very healthy level. It’s not helped by the groundsharing costs and loss of earnings around that, at least until any other facilities become available…

It definitely at least used to be M&B, but it certainly feels like a freehouse so I don’t know if that changed…

Live not far from the Black Horse so go in semi-regularly and walk past it to go Tescos- have had a few busy Fridays of note which I’m chuffed about. The deli on the Castle is technically part of the pub, the main room has a hatch in it to serve out. Do some recent pork pies/scotch eggs. Can’t beat a few games of pool in the Cherry Tree, can spend hours in there easily!

Genuinely what do people get out of going? 150 year record of being utter shit broken by us under ownership who have utter contempt for supporters. If you have a season ticket, it’s better accepting its wasted money and doing something productive with your time. If you’re actively buying tickets, then you’re just thick. Leave the ground empty and starve them out. No one can be arsed to lease proper protests so that’s the only option left.

Important to consider this: when you think Nottinghamshire & Derbyshire have Mansfield, Notts County, Chesterfield, Burton (I know Staffs technically but has cross-county support) in lower leagues, then there’s several National League teams. Leicestershire next highest ranked club is Harborough in the 7th step. Then it’s Barwell. Theres very few clubs at this level of football with such a clear catchment area.

Did exactly did run (well, in order Cherry Tree, Castle, Black Horse then Duffy’s due shenanigans) on Saturday Considered doing a summer crawl this year, minus Duffy’s and then Ale Wagon, the Marquis and finishing off at the Old Horse.

Ref collapsed at the Aylestone Park vs Hinckley game yesterday, apparently fine/better now and has contacted both clubs but the game was abandoned. Wasn’t there at the time, thought I’d have a few beers in town and the post-Leicester traffic did us in, shame as it would have likely been a good game.

I’ve been doing this indirectly for a couple years now. Been involved in non-league since post-Covid, admittedly bought tickets last year for the Sheffield Wednesday game because I had a couple Spanish friends who were living here for a summer and wanted to see a Leicester game, otherwise if I go I borrow a mate’s ST and pay them for the match value. I don’t plan on buying a ticket again until there’s clear signs of progress. I doubt I’ll miss much in the meantime. The final form of the ‘football is akshually a business’ argument: frothing-at-the-mouth, contradictory nonsense. It’s a business: yet apparently it needs no ‘customers’ to survive despite emails begging supporters to turn up to games and extremely vague ‘pro-supporter’ overtures when we’re relegated or threatened by the prospect. It’s a business, but any ‘customer’ who criticises the ‘service’ (in this case the objectively awful running of the club on and off the pitch) is ungrateful and has no right to ‘moan’. An extremely gentle organised protest march, which is featuring several national news interviews and in which the organisers have warned off any abusive behaviour, is ‘yob/mob rule’. Poor reflection of this club’s support base (and probably the country as a whole) that we’ve become so weak-minded and submissive and there’s those willing to defend corporate interests and foreign national billionaires erode our local institutions and water down cultural interests. Especially when it’s their employees that created the success.

This is my concern, details are needed ASAP really. There’s only so much the club can do and if they try anything then A) it’s bad press and B) there’s time to reorganise and still have a presence on the day. The police are the bigger hurdle and currently the club could use the police as an easy out to get this scattered and completely sidelined.

The business the owners made their money in is essentially a localised monopoly that was secured in large parts through a very shady relationship with an extremely questionable semi-authoritarian monarchy. The business model is selling tat and crap at marked up prices to folk who have no other choice or are extremely gullible and naive. If you take that business and context behind it and apply it to the football club and supporter base, it’s quite easy to see why there’s such indignity from the hierarchy at the club now the sheen of the bread and circus has gone and there’s finally some dissent at the negligent and frankly piss-taking operation they’re running.

Fin vs the Internet and the new Fin vs History shows are both excellent, seems like Horatio is basically his understudy at this point and seems to be working for him, was looking at the Black Horse show myself. Saw Fin Taylor at the Y Theatre last year and he was superb. Only got the one booked in so far so definitely need to look at getting a couple more in!

Tell you what somehow I didn’t realise they were supporter-owned! Surprised as they’ve never been particularly well-supported either, is there a couple of big backers within the ranks? What they’ve managed with Gill is impressive regardless. Speaking to folk at Bilston last season and the season before, they were looking to go supporter-owned as well. Recently had the ground gifted to them by the council as well (which is a fantastic little non league setup in my opinion) and seem to be organising a decent youth setup as well. Never seem to be able to get their break but hope they do soon as they could be a great little non-league club if they keep trending the right way off the pitch.

Not to rub it in but a good portion of the West Midlands ground are utter holes You get the occasional good away day with the likes of Bridgnorth or a few teams that groundshare with higher level clubs but the likes of Wednesfield are the most depressing places to watch football on the planet. That said, there’s a few decent ones in that Wolves area like Cradley, and plenty are train-able journeys going out New Street so the chance for a few beers in Brum. There’s a lot more Leicestershire in there now which Hinckley rarely had in their stint in there and makes it a lot more convenient. Enjoying this league a lot more in the UCL if not for the egregious travel distances and less train away days, although a few lads do put minibuses on which are proving more popular this season. I suppose more importantly though: at least these clubs HAVE a ground! Shame to see Atherstone aren’t forecast to come over anymore: makes it a harder league but Atherstone, Nuneaton, Rugby & Hinckley all in one league should make for some good crowds.

I got hooked to Leicester when I was a young lad in the mid 00s, season ticket in the Family Stand, watching a brand of football consistently below mediocre, season after season of few wins and 4-0 batterings to Wolves last game of the season, drab football with players that weren’t good enough in front of crowds of sub-25,000, but you were surrounded by supporters who were there because they loved Leicester unconditionally, there was very little attraction outside of that. I remember sat watching Stoke away in 2008 and being absolutely distraught because even though we’d not been good enough we’d battled up to the end, we had one of the better defences in the league if I remember correctly. Then Pearson came in, I started going with my stepdad in L1, and the next eight seasons I was utterly hooked. We won League One, the first time I’d seen a successful Leicester side that wasn’t on an old VHS recording of the Boro League Cup or on Premier League Years. Then we came up and I saw us properly compete in the Championship, even if we were far from the best side, and on a relative shoestring we dug out a fifth place finish, heartbreak in Cardiff, but even with what came after 2009/10 was probably my favourite season. Early teenage nostalgia and a team that was built on grit and team effort and backed by supporters who’d been through years of mediocrity and slow decline but finally realised we were on the up. We all know what happened next, but it’s depressing knowing it’ll never quite feel that way again. Part of it childhood and teenage nostalgia, part of it simply having seen the success we’d never thought we’d hit, but more importantly the club and support seemed to have changed so drastically it’s depressingly alien. Small things in the early KP days like the old frieze that wrapped round the top of the roof, with all the players from the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s taken down to be replaced by… a plain blue banner of the badge and King Power. It was never anything drastic in that period but since the league win they realised the credit was near infinite with a good majority and they can do what they like. Statements on ‘legacy fans’, a general resistance to any supporter-backed reform like safe-standing, going into NFT ticketing… and now a bloc of supporters who’ll defend near enough anything, where any criticism no matter how valid is ungratefulness, where an owner, no matter how absent-mindedly or catastrophically he runs things, is always right, and if he isn’t, well you should be grateful for everything he ‘gave’ us. In the late 90s we were a club that punched above it’s weight, in the late 00s we were a club that fought and clawed for everything, in the 10s we were the great disruptor. We’re now a club who should be grateful we’re being ran into the ground. I’ve drifted away from the club since Covid, essentially locked out of tickets up until being skeptical and ultimately disillusioned abd disconnected by the running of the club. I’ve picked up non-league, love it, and felt a bit of what made those early years so special. Leicester has lost me almost entirely at this point, there’s too much history to fully let go but I’m happy to watch from a distance, or borrow a season ticket here very occasionally and avoid rewarding this regime with any money. It’s a massive shame but I retain the hope that maybe one day it’ll be different and I can take my own kid to a club that resembles what I grew to love.

Symptomatic of a supporter base that is utterly bereft of any fight or energy, with a good portion completely devoted to the leadership of the club regardless of outcome or decline. I fear we’ll see this pattern emerge again with the protest as much as I hope otherwise. I can’t complain too much, I’ve stepped away massively from the club for non-league where I feel a lot more engaged and familiar with the club I support. It’s a massive shame but that’s where we are, any change comes up against a wall of passivity and entrenched loyalty to the point I’m no longer sure even liquidation would spur people to action, we laughed at Derby’s supporter for a complete lack of energy when they were on the brink but we may be several leagues worse than that.

This is mental ‘Football is a business’ crowd have gone beyond the pale. It’s the level of libertarian thinking that’s essentially “if I’ve bought a Grade I listed heritage building, and ran a successful store in it for a couple years before it all went to shit, why can’t I just pull it down and build a shopping centre on top?” Football clubs are a tangible historical asset in their communities, with many approaching or beyond 150 years of running. The idea someone can come in, accomplish a couple trophies and it affords them the ability to decline any scrutiny no better how poorly it’s ran, and you have supporters defending them suggesting they can or should just shut doors at the hint of any dissent, is absolutely staggering. Even ‘businesses’ these folk love to refer to wouldn’t operate this way because they’d be bankrupt within half a year. A normal business cannot rely on basically holding its ’customers’ hostage because they’re in control of an asset extremely ingrained into local culture thats a multigenerational point of identity in households. Which is exactly why it’s not ‘just a business’ and why an owner can’t just shut the doors. If all the supporters left overnight there’s no club, it’s going bust or declining to an unrecognisable form. If the owner left and managed to liquidate the club purely out of spite, there’d be a Leicester City AFC set up by the supporters within a month. A club is never just its owners. If a club doesn’t have its supporters then it’s nothing. Anyone can have an opinion on whether it’s x’s fault, y’s fault or z’s fault, but the idea anyone involved in the club is above scrutiny is nonsense.

We can stay up this season and the same issues are still there. We’ll be saying the same thing next season if we stayed up, when do we put our foot down?