Covering the lower leagues (9)
- 1 Sep 06, 04:49 PM
Hello there,
Our feedback inbox often has pleas from people for us to cover more sport and at a lower level. This one caught my eye so I thought I'd share it, and our response with you.
I live in Stourbridge,West Midlands and follow our local football team, Stourbridge FC.
This season they are playing in the British Gas Business Southern league Midland Division. I am very disappointed when I go onto Ceefax page 399 for the West MIdlands local football results that the league results for that league are not listed, although the results for the Premier and South West teams of our league are.
So I had a chat with our regional football desk and this is what they told me...
"Although we would dearly love to carry fixtures and results for all local leagues it is simply not possible.
There is only one slot dedicated to minor fixtures and, as well as local football, we also carry rugby and cricket, the information for all of which is supplied to us by the Press Association. This means we often have a dozen pages or more on the 399 slot and to include leagues further down the football pyramid would mean even more sub-pages.
Unfortunately we have to have a cut-off point and this means that some local leagues miss out. In the interests of fairness we cannot cover one league in Step 7 or Step 8 of the football pyramid but ignore others at the same level."
So I hope this explains.
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You can have as many pages as you like on the internet though so why does the non-league section of this website only go down to conference level?
A bit of copy and pasting from the PA feed can't be that hard can it?
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Well you manage to have an entire section for Scottish League three, whose attendances only number a few hundred, much like Stourbridge. Why don't you balance your coverage based on the amount of interest shown in the games, and equate Stourbridge and their like with the Scottish League?
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Bridget
You can get your local team's league and all other competition details like their FA Cup results etc., if you go to :-
www.tonykempster.co.uk
This guy who lives in York asks for a minimum payment, I send him an annual cheque for Β£10, so he can keep the site going.
His site is tremendous, as it covers all the non-league pyramid from National Conference down to Step 7, and I think you won't be able to leave it for long.
Have a good time on the site.
Regards
Alan Hindle
Denton, near Manchester
A former "92 Club" member.
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I agree with Ian over the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's failure to cover the lower leagues. ALL leagues down to county level should be covered even if it is just fixtures and results.
If you added up all those people who follow and/or attend the lower level non-league clubs it would be a very considerable number of sports fans.
The Scottish leagues are covered despite gates that are in line with the Ryman and Southern Leagues. What's good enough for Scotland should be the same in England
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That response from the regional desk is a load of old tosh. It doesn't explain why the Southern League South/West Division is included on page 399, but the Southern League Midland Division is not included. They are at the same level (Step 4).
I can understand the line has to be drawn somewhere, but to include one division but not another at the same level in the same league is ridiculous.
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The rules seem particularly arbitrary in the case of the FA Cup. It would not take up much space to cover all the qualifying matches and draw for the next round. The webpage section still covers last season's competition.
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It's hard enough to catch the Cheltenham Town goals and we're in the third tier! My ariel is pointing the wrong way to get the ITV news coverage. For Cheltenham to be featured on Midlands Today we have do something amazing, like play Newcastle in the cup... those fair weather fans in Birmingham... tut tut.
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The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ is missing a big opportunity.
Live scores are everywhere for the Premiership down to the conference.
However, For the British Gas (Southern League), Ryman & Unibond Leagues - some 178 SENIOR football clubs - there are no live updates anywhere.
If the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ dedicated a page (or more) on CEEFAX I would be addicted for every away game. - I'm sure many of the 100,000+ supporters at this level would be very interested.
COME ON Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ - TAKE THE LEAD - BEFORE SOMEONE ELSE DOES!
Finally - Come on you Glassboys!!!
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if the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ stopped giving wall-to-wall coverage of the over-rated Premiership, it find find more time and space for fulfilling its licence obligations and covering lower league football.
Since the print media is also chokka with Premiership overkill, what is the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ offering that's different?
As for Scottish lower leagues - the average for Div 3 is under 500 which puts it at the same level as the Conference North (and a bit better than conference South). These Conferences ARE reasonably well covered by the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ on its website
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