Tassell - The bottom corner hope, glory and non-league football

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Epub ISBN: 9781473546189

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Yellow Jersey Press, an imprint of Vintage
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA

Yellow Jersey Press is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.

Copyright Nige Tassell 2016
Cover photograph David Bauckham

Nige Tassell has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this Work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published by Yellow Jersey Press in trade paperback in 2016
First published by Yellow Jersey Press in paperback in 2017

penguin.co.uk/vintage

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780224100595

To Jane,

the first name on the team sheet

WITH EXPERT FINGERS , Steve Laker delicately pulls a wad of football cards from their cellophane sheath. The cards date from the early 1970s and, in their original plastic wrapping, would have been accompanied by a hard, yellow strip of bubble gum. The gum, tasteless and inedible, would have been discarded as soon as the packet was opened. The cards were the real treasure, the faces of footballing icons gazing straight back into the eyes of the beholder.

Laker flicks through the pile with the dexterity of a Monte Carlo croupier, a new player revealed on each turn of a card. These are faces familiar to any student of FA Cup football whos of a certain age. Heres Charlie Cooke, the Chelsea winger whose chip supplied Peter Osgoods equaliser in the 1970 final replay. Theres Allan Sniffer Clarke, scorer of the only goal in 1972 when Leeds prevented Arsenal leaving Wembley with the trophy for a second successive season. And heres a young Peter Mellor, a shot taken of the Fulham goalkeeper two or three years before he gifted West Ham both goals in the 75 final.

Laker is hoping that some of this FA Cup magic will rub off on his fingertips. On this particular Friday afternoon, hes at work in his day job as a cigarette-card dealer; downstairs from his office is a warehouse packed with five million such cards. But tomorrow hell be donning his tracksuit as the manager of Bishop Sutton, a team from a one-shop Somerset village embarking on their latest FA Cup adventure. It may be mid-August, but for those clubs at levels nine and ten of English footballs pyramid, tomorrow is a red-letter day the Extra Preliminary Round of the worlds oldest cup competition.

There is every indication that Bishop Suttons FA Cup adventure this year will be a short one say, ninety minutes plus stoppages. Despite winning the Toolstation Western League Premier Division just a couple of years back, they finished last season on a nineteen-match losing streak. Along with a lorryload of 5-0 and 6-0 thumpings, their porous defence conceded double figures on three occasions, 13-0, 11-0, 11-1 the stuff of mismatched schoolboy football. Relegation became a nailed-on certainty as early as Christmas. After seventeen consecutive seasons in the same division, they slipped down to the tenth tier, finishing fourteen points adrift of the nearest team and desperately hoping that no one noticed a goal difference of -109.

Despite the drop down a division, those poor performances have continued into the new season. Two matches, two home defeats. They havent won a competitive game since last November; they havent even scored in one since March. In the top ten tiers of English club football, no other team is as out of form as them. Bishop Sutton occupy the bottom corner. Yet Steve Laker isnt a manager nervously looking over his shoulder, expecting his chairmans patience to have finally evaporated, a metaphorical P45 close to hand. While some might suggest the cold hard facts are inescapable, impossible to argue against, there are extenuating circumstances.

After winning the league title in 2013, Bishop Suttons modest ground needed upgrading to meet the requirements of the Southern League. Without the funds to enact these, the club was denied promotion. Once the news came through, the make-up of the club changed overnight. There was a mass exodus of players and management staff all at once, Laker explains, leaving the club in the situation where they had to bring in a squad from Bath University, along with two members of staff from there as managers. They did well and kept the club in the Premier Division. The following season, one of the managers got a job with Southamptons academy and the other said he couldnt fully give his time to Bishop Sutton because of university commitments, so he stepped down. As soon as those two went, players started drifting away.

At that point, Laker who as a youngster was attached to one of Plymouth Argyles satellite academies before playing several years at county league level was persuaded to leave his position as assistant manager at Bridgwater Town and head inland to the Chew Valley. When I came on board, I was left with just two players mid-season. The university players were great, but they werent regular enough. University students arent back until September and then they disappear for Christmas. It could be as many as ten games that they miss.

I needed a squad of players who were going to be there week in, week out. I tried to bring in any Tom, Dick and Harry just to finish the season. We had to sign people at the absolute last minute just to get a team out. Ill put my hands up some of them simply werent good enough. But you get heavily fined if you cant fulfil a fixture. I think its close to 1,000. I had ten games left, so potentially thats up to 10,000. That would have crippled the club. My personal goal for the rest of that season wasnt results. It was to fulfil our fixtures. We managed to do that, but unfortunately it was at the cost of a place in the Premier Division.

In rebuilding the team, Laker at the age of just thirty-one is rebuilding the club. This is an outfit from a small village, where the bare bones of the first team are, through his signings, slowly gaining flesh. Theres no set-up stretching through the age groups here, no reserve teams; just an under-18s side that one of the first-teamers looks after. The progress or otherwise of the first team determines the fate of the whole club. And, extenuating circumstances or not, the pressure will surely build on Laker over the next month or two if theres no tangible improvement on the pitch. A Premier League or Championship manager might be under the round-the-clock scrutiny of fans and media, but, with his well-upholstered current account able to cushion any downturn in his professional fortunes, he can flick the switch to off whenever he chooses, able to skip gaily off the merry-go-round and escape into an extended sabbatical or early retirement. The actual