Chip Wrappers: 15/09/2006

To what I'm sure will no doubt be great rejoicing, I have to announce that this edition of Chip Wrappers will be a lot shorter than usual. Alright, alright... you don't have to cheer that much!

There are two reasons for this: 1) I'm currently trying to figure out how to get my new MP3 player to work (why does up-to -the minute technology come with such cryptic instruction manuals) and 2) there's very little of interest to write about. Most of what there is though comes courtesy, once again, of the Non-League Paper.

In an article that should be titled "Why Are You Still Bothering", it says that our beloved F.A. are once again meeting with the Northern League in an attempt to get them involved in the Pyramid. Seasoned non-league watchers will know that for years, most of the teams in the Northern League given the opportunity to enter the NPL have refused because of travelling distances and a misplaced sense of their own worth (a few years ago a league official stated that their teams should get promoted directly to the Conference).

The league itself has prominently taken an anti-promotion stance in the past, leading many neutral observers to believe that the league is protecting its own interests rather than those of its clubs. For 'a football hotbed', as the media would have us believe the North East is, most of the area's sides are poorly supported and taking the bigger fishes from the pond could have serious repurcussions for the league. Many of us have criticised the NWCL in the past but at least they encourage teams to go on and better themselves.

The Northern League secretary is quoted in the story saying that teams relegated from the NPL don't want to go back. So it has to be asked as to why the FA are continuing to put time, money and resources into something that is a non-starter. If they want to cut themselves off - let them.

All matches in the NLP are marked out of five in terms of entertainment. However I think the ratings system is in need of some recalibration after last Saturday's game at North Ferriby was given three stars - a match described by someone in the car on the way home as 'near unwatchable'. And if that was a 3/5 perfomance, imagine how awful the Chorley-Buxton game must have been to havet got one out of five!

Elsewhere: the M.E.N. have once again missed us out of their Monday night non-league briefing despite mentioning all the other local clubs in the NPL; Stalybridge Celtic manage to make it onto back of the Reporter in two stories (keeping up their record of having appeared on the back page every single week this season) and once again have a match report illustrated by the squad photo. If anybody from the Reporter is reading this: Please find another picture to use.

In the Advertiser a lengthy back page article about this weekends FA Cup games looks promising until you realise that more than half of it is taken up with Curzon Ashton's game. Previews of the Mossley and Ashton United fixtures are confined to a combined 21 word sentence whilst the rest of the story focuses on Glossop. Yes, that's right - Glossop, which unless I'm very much mistaken is not in Tameside. Or does the Advertiser have inside information about forthcoming boundary changes?

However it does give us the quote of the week, courtesy of Glossop manager Chris Nicholson - 'If we're on song we'll be be singing, but if we're not on song we'll be out of tune.'

So Glossop may play well or they might not... aren't you glad that we have a local media to bring you exclusives like this?

Till next week.