Hello T&M fans and greetings from Glossop, on the edge of The Peak District, between Manchester and Sheffield. Apologies for posting on your forum board, but I will explain. I have a friend on an internet golf gaming site who is a T&M supporter, we got chatting about T&M and my Club, Glossop North End and I thought I'd better check you out. I've been looking at all kinds of stuff on the internet and now find myself getting drawn in and realised I was gutted at the F.A. Cup defeat at Leatherhead on Saturday, following that excellent 5-1 win over Corinthian Casuals ! Glossop were lucky enough to get a 90th minute winner at Runcorn in our F.A. Cup match and we'd had to play in the preliminary round as well before that. Oh well, at least it's about £3500 in the bank so far !

Just a bit of info on North End. We play at step 5 in the North West counties League where we were founder members in 1982 and have been stuck there since, unable to move up to the Evostick League at step 4, in all that time. We are the smallest town ever to have had a team playing in the top division of English football, (1900 ) when our wealthy benefactor was Samuel Hill-Wood, who later went to be Arsenal Chairman and Peter, his gandson, recently stepped down as Chairman there. F.A. Cup quarter finalists in 1909 and we battled through to the final of the F.A. Vase at Wembley in 2009, but lost to Whitley Bay, who were undoubtedly the best step 5 side in the Country, at the time. It was still a fantastic effort and achieved with a weekly wage bill of under £500, all in !

I've read all kinds of stuff about T&M and to say there is some unrest in the Club, would be an understatement I guess. The stadium looks superb and it appears you are punching well below your weight, at step 4. Are the problems all about internal Club politics, finances, general mis-management, or a combination of things ? In my humble opinion and with 33 years of non league football experience behind me, money can buy success at our levels, but equally important is having the right people in place, who know how to spend it wisely. Money in non league football tends to be here today...... gone tomorrow !

Apologies again for intruding on your Forum. I will continue to check this site regularly and being as I'm now smitten, I will be checking results, reports and hopefully progress for T&M in the future. Consider me your man in the North and just in case you're wondering..... it is grim up North !

Adrian
 

Last edited by Glossopade (02/9/2013 5:23 pm)