Cutlery, the press, and non league football....

About twenty years ago I began to despair about the media coverage of non-league football.

It was the first round proper of the FA Cup and in rounding up the 'interest' stories of the non-league clubs that were in the draw, a broadcaster opted to focus solely on a supporter whose post match entertainment involved playing the spoons to his friends in the clubhouse.

For me it represented a nadir in the coverage of this level of football and summed up a general media attitude. The media approach seemed to be premised on the belief that the quality of football and spectacle on offer in the non-league game was so irrelevant that the main story was the 'quirkiness' of the characters involved in the clubs.

Let's face it for many professional journalists non-league was synonymous with Sunday League football. They expected overweight footballers playing a long ball game on a pudding of a pitch (even in August), in front of a handful of supporters who were probably only distracted from the game by exchanging notes on train timetables.

The image of the spoon playing supporter has never left me but to be fair the national media are now more accurately profiling non-league football based on its merits rather than media misconceptions.

Thankfully the exponential growth of Internet radio, satellite TV, and social media has enabled many more voices and opinions to be heard and to provide an increasingly representative view of the national game at our level.  We now have a national Non League Paper, BT Sports highlights show, regular live TV coverage, and countless quality independent media and club productions.

As the major broadcasters see the rise of players such as Jamie Vardy or Dwight Gayle they realise that the quality of football is good and players have the potential to smash the glass ceiling.

More than this though there is a realisation that the game at our level represents a quality that has been lost higher up the divisions.  The ability of fans and players to chat over a drink in the bar post match, the fact that clubs are pinnacles of the community (and not international brands seeking to break into a global market), the commitment of dedicated volunteers to running the clubs, and the friendly family orientated atmosphere that awaits new spectators, are now unique to clubs lower down the football hierarchy. These aspects - in my view - make places like Nethermoor a higher quality match day experience than the Premier League - not a second rate alternative.  The media have cottoned onto this and I believe an ever increasing number of football fans will be drawn to clubs like us thanks to this wider exposure.

Guiseley's October has so far epitomised how far the media has come.  Hot on the heels of our first ever live TV match here at Nethermoor, we had Non League Day at Forest Green Rovers.  As well as our in house media team, the fantastic coverage we receive now enables fans to follow the Lions home and away via national broadcasters such BBC radio and BT Sport, but more than just coverage, we are treated with increasing respect for our status as a football club.  

The spoons can stay in the cutlery draw.

The 2014-15 season.....

Sunday 11th May 2014 was an unusual day in my life.  

For the first time in decades I had fallen – ever so temporarily – out of love with football.  The culprit was a man named Greg Wilkinson, a last minute extra time substitute designed to shore up Altrincham’s penalty taking team, who unexpectedly ran through on goal to secure the Robins a late, heartbreaking, extra time victory in the Conference North play off final.

Yet again Guiseley suffered a play-off heart break.  Yet again we had to watch as thousands of home fans celebrated wildly.  Yet again we trudged away contemplating how good fortune deserted us at the key point. This time we even had to watch our former talisman James Walshaw celebrate wildly in the colours of our opponents. 

That Sunday it felt as though football had destined us to always be the bridesmaids – and quite frankly that morning I had no more time for football.

It was a temporary spat.  Quite frankly, since my Dad - a hard working Scot - shared his love of the game with me as a young boy I’ve pretty much been besotted since.  By 4.30 that afternoon, I was renewing my vows reading the life story of another hard working Scot - Bill Shankley - whose famous quote that football is a matter far more important than life and death is - while clearly incorrect - an indication of the passion and attachment people have to their sport and teams.

Shankley, like my Dad, escaped hard times in Glasgow to find work and success in England. My Dads career was far more modest than Shankley's - and didn't involve managing a football team. But I learnt from him that even when times were at their hardest, football offered the ultimate escape. This was something Shakley knew well and which spurred him on relentlessly to deliver success to Liverpool and the people of the city he loved so much.

But the joy football brings can only exist if there is also disappointment. And after four seasons of play off defeats it felt that Guiseley were always destined to blend joyful hope across the course of the normal season with bitter disappointment at the playoff end of it.

So it was with a sense of hope rather than belief that I, and many other Guiseley fans, entered the 2014/15 season.  In the first three games the lions picked up 7 points without conceding a goal.  Hope was renewed.  Home defeats against Gainsborough Trinity and Gloucester City followed and we were already consigning ourselves to the long hard season of reflection ahead.

Yet we rallied and by November a quirk of the fixture schedule meant we had a double header with league leaders Barrow and the prospect of potentially taking top spot if the games went our way.  Once again we were left to rue the fates that the football gods bestow upon us.  We dominated the early stages at Holker Street before the customary goal against the run of play swung things in the Bluebirds favour.  At Nethermoor we fell apart in an opening 45 minute debacle and found ourselves 3-0 down.  Then we rallied and might have turned the game round with a scintillating second half performance.  Too little too late though and we lost 3-2.

Such pitfalls are small beer in life.    In early 2015 my family suffered a real setback as my Dads state of health declined. Shankley's words seemed laughable. 

My Dad and I talked much about football – and frankly disagreed frequently.  For my Dad direct football with tricky wingers and powerful centre forwards were the order of the day.  Football should be about scoring goals in his view – not possession or ‘sideways passing’.  When he watched teams deploying what he considered unadventurous or conservative play he would usually decry this as awful ‘Butch Wilkins school of football’.  This related to the seventies and eighties Chelsea and England international Ray Wilkins – who my Dad considered to embody the 'terrible' habit of passing the ball sideways for fear of losing possession.

While my Dad hated possession football, I was rather enjoying it.  Particularly at Solihull Moors where it was on display to great effect as the Lions racked up a valuable away victory against a strong Solihull outfit. 

The playoffs were in touching distance – and the title still remained a potential dream. Once again football provided the magical distraction.

I recanted Guiseley's slick passing game and results to my Dad and he gave me a scornful look, as if to question my basic footballing sensibilities.

Then the season, and life in general, took another turn for the worse.  My Dad’s condition declined drastically.  He went to hospital and appeared close to deaths door.  He rallied and I was eternally grateful to the hospital staff.  A long trip with Guiseley followed as we went to Lowestoft.  A dour 0-0 followed.  More points dropped.  Then defeat at Chorley.   A play off place was in doubt.

Then Dad's condition worsened still – and on the 8th April 2015, he died.  Still numb I travelled to the local derby with my brother.  We were convinced football would provide some comfort – and were optimistic that a resurgent Bradford Park Avenue would dish up a classic derby encounter.  Football would provide some minor respite surely at this time.

An even more turgid 0-0 draw followed.  It was a truly terrible game on a terrible surface.  It was like watching 22 blindfolded men playing in a sandpit with a beach ball.  

Perhaps this was no time for football.

Optimism was in short supply when Chorley arrived at Nethermoor.  The Lions needed a victory while Chorley had already twice beaten Guiseley this season.   Thankfully, Guiseley rallied and a 2-1 victory was enough to secure a play-off berth with other results working in our favour.

Two more meaningless defeats in meaningless games followed, leaving Guiseley in the last play-off spot.  This meant they would face AFC Fylde, who had finished in second place after just losing out on the title on the final game of the season.

A packed Nethermoor saw a wonderful performance from Guiseley secure a 1-0 first leg lead – Jake Lawlor the unlikely goal scorer.  Possession football and cool heads saw the Lions recover from conceding in the first minute in the return leg.  Sideways passing and incisive finishing were the order of the day as Danny Boshell and Andy Holdsworth produced superb goals to secure the place in the Vanarama Conference North Promotion Final.   It was a two legged victory that Butch Wilkins himself would have been proud of.

Then came the final.  After the years of heartache, all were praying for a change of fortune.  We felt Chorley were a beatable side but on the day we all too soon felt that the fates were yet again conspiring against us.

Once more the Guiseley play off curse seemed poise to strike.  Traffic chaos led to the team arriving late.  The pitch was hard and uneven.  The home crowd were large in number and vociferously began urging on the Magpies to victory.

Guiseley didn’t get out of the traps well.  The first corner led to a Chorley goal, then a second followed.  The Lions passing game couldn’t thrive on the uneven surface and even led to key man Ollie Johnson suffering an injury.  My Dad would have chuckled – I could hear him taunting me “you’ll never win anything playing that Butch Wilkins school of football son.”

Just as things seemed at their worst the tide slowly turned.  Johnson’s injury led to a tactical masterstroke – but not one that anyone instantly recognised.  Mark Bower used the opportunity to introduce Liam Dickinson – whose spell with the club since joining from Stalybridge Celtic had been marked by a distinct lack of goals and a sending off that led to a four match suspension.  Dickinson is the sort of powerful centre forward that my Dad would approve of direct, physical, and strong.  The half time break arrived and Chorley lost their talismanic centre half Andy Teague to a head injury.  Two more Magpies would fall foul of injury, including goalkeeper Sam Ashton.

The second half started in earnest when Danny Boshell lobbed the ball over the back four and Adam Boyes was quickest off the mark to tuck the ball under the goalkeeper and into the net.  The Lions had a foothold.

The game then transcended into a strange dream as Steven Drench lofted a free-kick into the Chorley area and Liam Dickinson nodded home.

The dream continued as Nicky Boshell turned in Adam Boyes’s cross to complete the turnaround and put Guiseley 3-2 ahead.

Chorley rallied and it seemed that Adam Mather had equalised late on, but his header struck the underside of the crossbar and away.  I – like all Guiseley fans – were sure that the fates would yet conspire against us.   So when the final whistle eventually blew there was a sense of disbelief, no one could have anticipated what we had witnessed. Few believed it was possible at half time.

And throughout the post match celebrations I kept thinking of my Dad. I could imagine him telling me that he told me so. Not that Guiseley would win - but that we needed to get the ball forward to a big striker and stop tapping the ball about with no purpose (like Butch Wilkins of course).  The game was the ultimate vindication of his football philosophy. 

Of course I loved our second half direct display of football. Not that I would want to see it week in and week out but it showed that all styles are have their time and place. 

I hope we return to playing our brand of the Butch Wilkins school of football in the Vanarama National next season. However, in my mind, the Promotion Final was the perfect moment to have my Dad's football sensibilities so spectacularly justified. And in the most crucial game of all in this of all seasons. It felt a fitting send off.

We need to talk about the weather...

When you pick up the papers there seem to be a relentless wave of bad news about the sustainability of non-league football.   

The existence of a number of our famous old clubs is once again in doubt.   In the Conference North alone, the financial alarm bells are ringing at Worcester City and Workington.  This, after hard hit clubs like FC Halifax Town and Chester, are only just returning to the Conference National after enforced relegations due to their former incarnations going bust.

Blame is quick to be pointed at the club’s management team and directors.  The media talk is often about club financial mismanagement, overspending on player wages, irresponsible ground contracts, or failure to sell enough season tickets. 

Whilst financial mismanagement is - and always will be - the major contributor to club failure I think more attention needs to be given, by both clubs and the football authorities, to some of the bigger, broader, risks that face the whole of our national grassroots game.

At this point I’m going to use two words that often polarise discussion – climate change. 

However, I don’t want to start an environmental debate about the causes, severity, or responsibilities for climate change, I simply want to look at two related points that I think every grassroots supporter should be concerned with. 

First, the wet summer weather and cold winters may be an ongoing feature of the British climate. 

Second, fuel and energy prices are likely to increase further.

There is plenty of science that considers my first point to be a distinct possibility.  Melting ice caps have altered ocean currents which in turn affects the jet stream.  The jet stream is why our British climate has historically been milder than other countries on the same latitude as it delivers warm weather from the south.  The change to the jet stream mean it now arrives further south, over the UK, and with it brings colder wetter summers and colder winters.

So what does this mean for our great game?  Well, the impact of last summer’s rain and subsequent winter snow was devastating for so many clubs in the Football Conference.  Postponements became typical.  Games were being postponed as early as August, while certain grounds became unplayable; Gateshead, FC Halifax Town, and Harrogate Town all had to rearrange home fixtures to other stadiums.  As a consequence clubs lost revenue through alternate venue hire costs, while all teams suffered as fixture congestion reduced attendances when games were eventually played during the midweek.

Clubs that are operating on tight budgets can find that their finances could quickly turn sour when prolonged postponements occur – a one off bad season might be bearable – but three or four consecutive seasons of unplayable conditions will see many more of our cherished clubs forced out of existence.

My second point relates to the continuing rise in fuel and energy.  Despite the recession, fuel costs continue to rise and rarely go down.  There are many factors that have contributed to this. International demand has sent oil prices soaring as the economies of China, Brazil, Russia, and India continue to grow exponentially while, despite the promise of shale gas and oil, supply is unable to keep up.  If you look at Government fossil fuel price projections to 2020 then you see that their moderate assumptions are that fuel, electricity and gas prices will continue to rise in real terms through to the end of the decade.

So what does this mean for the grassroots game?  The recent development of the football pyramid is at odds with increasing fuel costs. Over the last decade the system has been revised to reduce the number of regional leagues.   Even at the first tier of regionalisation the geographic spread is so wide that in Conference North teams such as Bishop’s Stortford face Workington - a near 600 mile round trip.  It hardly needs stating that the current set up means that it has become far more expensive for teams and fans to follow their teams when they travel away.   Of course as fossil fuel prices soar, it also becomes more expensive to stage matches - particularly floodlit midweek matches - as electricity and gas bills go up.  Of course as postponements increase there will be many more rearranged midweek fixtures.

Naturally these issues are beyond the control or influence of the football authorities and clubs.  However more should be done to prepare and adapt our great game for these challenges.  Some clubs and individuals in the game have already taken steps.  For example, Forest Green Rovers, Ipswich Town, and even Manchester United have developed climate change strategies to cut their energy costs.   There is even a campaigning organisation in the field, ‘Sustainability in Sport’ (http://www.sustainabilityinsport.com/ ) which champions greater environmental sustainability in our national game.  This has been set up by former Manchester United player Gary Neville. 

Despite this if you put in the words “climate change” into thefa.com search engine you get no results – which appears indicative of the football authorities approach.  This is completely at odds with most large UK businesses who recognise the challenges and understand the need to have a plan to survive and thrive.

Climate change promises postponements, higher fuel costs, and the likelihood that more of our great non league clubs will be tipped over the financial abyss as a result.  It would be nice to know that our games administrators had a plan.

Grounds for concern

Football is a simple pleasure. At the heart of its success has been the ability of clubs to connect with local people and get them start and sustain a habit within them of going to the game.

From top to bottom of the football pyramid regular support of a football team relies upon a fans ability to watch a local team, regularly on a Saturday afternoon, at a local stadium.

This is definitely the case in the Blue Square North where many clubs rely on their local community to get behind their local team. A Saturday fixture involving Guiseley at Nethermoor is my idea of a good afternoon - a 30 minute walk to the ground from my house, 90 minutes of good quality football, and a swift pint of beer in the clubhouse afterwards is my idea of perfection.

For the most part of this campaign, I’ve been able to indulge in this pleasure consistently, which helps form the habit and keeps me coming back. Despite the tough winter and the wet summer the Nethermoor pitch has held up pretty well thanks to effective investments (such as pumps) and great ground staff -so postponements have been minimized. In addition I’ve been able to enjoy seeing steady off-field progress including a new all seat stand, improved terracing, and better pitch-side fencing. Knowing that there is a regular game on Saturday afternoon is a key factor for many.

Yet the experience has not been the same for fans of other clubs in the division for whom a combination of bad weather and economic hardships have pressed hard.

First, the wet weather has wreaked havoc with some of grounds with poorer pitches. Harrogate Town and FC Halifax fans have really suffered due to the drainage problems at their respective clubs. Both have had to suffer the frustration of constant postponements. In Harrogate’s case the cancellations started as early as August and by the time Wetherby Road hosted the FA Cup Second Round tie with Hastings in front of the ITV cameras, the pitch was a mud-bath and barely playable. Both sets of fans have had to watch their team play ‘home’ games at other stadiums in an attempt to get matches played – Harrogate as far as Doncaster, while Halifax fans had to travel to Rochdale – hardly surprisingly this has hit attendances.

Second, a number of clubs face uncertain futures in their home stadiums. Two weeks ago Guiseley made the long trip to Worcester City for their last ever appearance at City’s St Georges Way stadium. It was a poignant moment as football has been played at the ground for over 100 years and has witnessed some remarkable moments, including an FA Cup victory over Liverpool in the 1950s. The ground’s location looks like the inspiration of a Lowry painting and is nestled in a housing estate and adjacent to a canal. The fans I spoke to were struggling to come to terms with a prospective move – one local told me that he grew up supporting the team, living just ten minutes from the ground he ruefully said “I just can’t imagine there not being a football ground here.” From next season City will be ground-sharing with Kidderminster while plans to develop a replacement stadium remain uncertain.

Another club to have suffered badly with their stadium is Gloucester City. The Tigers have had to play their home matches in Cheltenham since flooding in 2007 ruined their former home. In exile the club has performed tremendously to retain their Blue Square North status despite high travel costs and falling attendances. Sadly, despite great efforts to establish plans for a replacement stadium planning issues and funding continue to challenge the club.

The consequence of constant postponements and stadium relocations hits hard. In the short term clubs lose tremendous amounts of revenue and face fixture pile ups. In the long term clubs lose momentum and the opportunity to inspire new fans. This has been the case in the Blue Square North. Attendances have been affected at Harrogate as ‘spur of the moment’ fans are uncertain whether a game will go ahead, while Gloucester City has had to encourage home fans to travel to a different town to watch football. In these circumstances the opportunities for the next generation of supporters to experience a local game reduces and so potential long term support is lost.

Despite our on-field rivalries, football fans know clubs are interdependent. I sincerely hope Halifax and Harrogate’s pitch problems are resolved for their own sakes and that Worcester and Gloucester find a new and successful spiritual home - in that regard I think we stand as one.

After all, no matter where you are in the world, we all share the desire to watch competitive games played in front of loyal local fans - in their own stadiums.

The joy of radio….

After a long midweek drive to Cheltenham to cover Guiseley’s recent away trip against Gloucester I returned with a bad back.  It seized overnight and by Thursday morning left me incapable of walking.    Needless to say, my ever supportive wife was less than impressed with my injury – especially as it was attained in the course of commentating on football – her face an mixture of perplex and exasperation. 

“And what exactly are you getting out of this?”  She asked as I hobbled downstairs after what felt like five minutes sleep.

To be fair she has a point.

So far I have followed Guiseley home and away for the most part this season, and since getting BCB on board to cover Guiseley on their ‘Sports Extra’ internet channel, I have racked up petrol, mobile phone, and many other costs.  To date the only income I’ve received was the pint of ‘Nethermoor Best’ that a fellow supporter bought for me after the Colwyn Bay match – and it was gratefully received and enjoyed!

It’s not about the money of course.  It is however tremendously exciting to be at the start of establishing regular radio commentary for the club.  In part its possible thanks to technological developments that I could only have dreamed of as a boy – today you can record audio on your smart phone and broadcast over the internet. However, the most thanks are owed to the support of Bradford Community Broadcasting (BCB).  BCB is a fantastic organisation run by passionate individuals and volunteers who know that radio can make a difference both to communities and individuals lives.   One of their governing principles is to help provide media access for organisations, or groups of people, that would otherwise be unable to gain it through conventional means – the station already provides excellent coverage of Bradford Park Avenue, the Bulls, and had a great track record of covering Bradford City for many years.

A quirk of geography means that Guiseley has always struggled to attract local radio.  I am a regular listener of BBC Leeds and West Yorkshire Sport, an excellent set of programmes with great presenters and producers.  However they also have a tremendously wide patch to cover, which in football terms includes Leeds United, Bradford City, Huddersfield Town, as well as other teams with sizable support such as FC Halifax, and a plethora of non-league clubs.   Compare this to BBC North Yorkshire whose broadcast area allows coverage to be focussed on York City and - Guiseley’s rivals - Harrogate Town on FM and MW channels simultaneously. 

By my reckoning Guiseley were one of the largest clubs not to have any form of regular match day broadcast coverage.   I think that radio plays an important part in the development of a football club and its role in the community.  I think that supporters feel more connected when they can follow events even when they can’t be at the match (often due to work or family commitments), or when they get the views of the manager or players after a game.  I think this helps build a stronger bond to the team, helps retain their interest in the club as a whole, and as a consequence plays a part in contributing to a stronger connection between the club and community.

Perhaps more importantly radio coverage provides an opportunity for volunteers to be part of something exciting.  Okay, so events at Nethermoor don’t have the profile of the Premiership, but the chance to be part of a live broadcast can be exhilarating.  What‘s more, you never know where the journey might take you.  In recent years the Lions have twice reached the first round of the FA Cup, played in front of over 5,000 in play-off finals, and have won the Northern Premier League championship in their centenary year in dramatic fashion on the final day.   The stunning example of Bradford City’s run to the Capital One Cup Final shows the unexpected turn of events that football can provide.

Radio provides an opportunity for people to get involved in creating something valuable.  Many are inspired to do so with reasons that vary.  Some - like me - might simply have an obsessive love of grassroots football - others enjoy the buzz of producing live programmes.  The Guiseley coverage is wholly dependent on the BCB volunteers on match day who edit highlights, prepare interviews and running orders, and make sure events at the game are broadcast – their contribution is invaluable.

Involvement also brings its own rewards – and it’s more than trying to be the next John Motson.  Participation helps develop skills, attitudes, develop confidence and build personality traits that help you succeed in any vocation.  Live broadcasting brings its own unique pressures, so you learn to handle stress, develop confidence to approach people for interview, as well as learning to think on your feet and respond to changing situations.  In my professional life I am occasionally required to deliver power point presentations, and when the computer fails (as they often do), I can draw on my ‘filling in’ experience from say, needing to commentate when nothing is happening – as often happens during the lengthy treatment for an injured player.  Skills attained through radio transfer to you for life.

For me, not only has radio helped develop my confidence and skills, it has also provided some of the most memorable experiences that I would never have had any other way. 

Through BCB I was fortunate enough to be asked to commentate at league grounds up and down the country when the station had a license to broadcast Bradford City games.  My first game (ironically given this week’s cup final) was Swansea v Bradford City on Valentine’s Day in 2006 (another day I drew on the tolerance and understanding of my wife), and started an exciting spell for me.  I got to cover games at some great stadiums and interviewed footballing legends such as Colin Todd, Dean Windass, and David Weatherall, as well as work with a huge array of people who shared my passion for radio, from Andy Bowerman the then City club chaplain, to David Ward, keen City fan and now Lib Dem MP.

I hope that the establishment of regular commentary at Guiseley will genuinely deliver the benefits to both the club and the community of supporters, as well as provide an opportunity and platform for even more people, from any background, to take part in producing and presenting - and so reap the same rewards of getting involved in radio.

2013 - a bad year for football. Don't believe everything you hear....

If 2012 was an inspirational year of sport - recent headlines might suggest 2013 will be the year sporting shame.  Lance Armstrong and the official Australian reports of wide scale doping give the impression that athletes from many sports are not all that they seem.  Add to that the startling revelation that our beautiful game in Europe has been tainted by match fixing – then the picture becomes increasingly miserable.

Should we be depressed by these stories?  On one hand they are serious and disconcerting, yet on the other are they truly representative?  Media companies are incentivised to exploit bad news for all its worth – after all bad news sells newspapers, drives up TV audiences, and helps drive sales and advertising revenues up.  As a result it can be hard to get a broad view of the health of sport, and in particular our national game.

Even the positive stories are frequently turned into cynical narratives in national media. For example when David Beckham announced to the world that he would be donating his newly acquired Paris St Germain salary to a children’s charity, the television and radio talk shows typically framed the story as a debate to decide whether we should view this as the rare generous action of an over privileged footballer, or a cynical PR gimmick? Pick the positives out of that one if you can.

The progressive sides of football are so often drowned out by the ‘newsworthiness’ of the negative stories – leaving the average viewer, listener, or reader with a tough task to gain any true sense of perspective.  The column inches devoted to controversies relating to players and clubs drown out the limited air time given to fantastic initiatives such as Football Aid, where these same ‘greedy’ players and football clubs give up their time and stadiums every year to raise huge amounts of money for good causes.

My passion is with the grassroots game – where community orientated clubs make a big difference to people’s lives in an understated and decidedly un-newsworthy way.  Events in 2013 at my club, Guiseley AFC, have reminded me of this fact.

It’s true that the club have attracted a lot of reflected positive attention in recent week thanks to the inspirational story of former Guiseley striker James Hanson who notched the Capital One Cup semi-final winner against Aston Villa.  Hanson combined his early football career at local clubs - including at Nethermoor - with shelf stacking in his local Co-op. His story is without doubt a wonderful example for any aspiring young footballer.

It was a joy to see Guiseley referenced in international coverage – Chinese, French, German, and Dutch to name a few.  What was even more impressive was that they all spelt the clubs name correctly – something that is beyond many of our league competitors!

Despite this coverage I noticed that pundits had a tendency to tinge the Bradford City success story as a rare fairy tale that contrasted with the backdrop of an ever increasingly cynical, negative and hard-nosed football industry.

Yet at an everyday level at Guiseley, a small part of the football industry, there have been so many positive off-field moments in the first few weeks of 2013 alone.  Few are headline grabbers, but all add to the pleasure of following events at Nethermoor.  Examples vary, ranging from when recent opponents Corby Town turned out in our stadium in a shocking pink strip – part of a season long commitment in support of breast cancer charities, to the entire Guiseley first team squad spending the last part of a Thursday night training session slogging away at putting covers over the pitch to make sure the Saturday game would go ahead.

This week also marked the first birthday of the club’s Community Foundation. This has been a fantastic example of a local club partnering with other community organisations to use football to make a positive difference to young and old people alike.  It exists as the club receives funds for community projects from the Football Conference – something that can only happen if the local community get behind the club and help build a successful on and off field team.

As a result in the last year first team players such as former Bradford City professional Danny Ellis have been coaching boys and girls during school holidays, hardworking volunteers have set up an Academy side for 16 to 18 year olds to help uncover the next James Hanson, while an adult 6-a side football tournament hosted at Nethermoor, in partnership with Guiseley Lion’s, raised money for charities.

But it’s not just football activities. Following the inspiration of the Olympics courses in Thai Boxing, Archery, Sports Leadership, Dance Leadership, Tri Golf, and multi sports – as well as vocational skills such as Food Hygiene and First Aid - have been delivered through partnerships.  All helping young people build skills and confidence that will set them in good stead for the future. Meanwhile the Nethermoor clubhouse has also become a social point for elderly people with disabilities who enjoy vital social time, chair based exercise, and yoga thanks to the clubs partnership with Aireborough Voluntary Services for Elderly with Disabilities.

Of course stories of corruption and institutional cheating should concern everyone in sport, a sense of perspective is essential though.  You can't expect to get it from the back pages, but if you look to your local club, I think you will see a far more inspirational and balanced story.