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01 Nov 2015

A visit to Molesey FC and why all football fans should visit non league games

A humble first round FA Trophy game Molesey v Didcot Town. A spare saturday arose as Brentford had defeated QPR on friday night, the first win over their neighbours from 4 miles away in 50 years. What made me choose this game?

Parking is easy
Cheeseburgers are good
Molesey play an attractive type of football fast paced
Only 8£ entrance
A cup game that may have something riding on it on the day

Considering the crowd was 95 and lets assume all adults, which clearly it was not, the maximal gate takings would be £760. So the prize money from the FA becomes quite important. A tiny bit of research tells me that the winner yesterday, Molesey, gets £2700. Roughly equivalent to the gate takings from 4-5 routine games.

FA Trophy Season 2015-16 Payments made from The FA’s Prize Fund
Preliminary Round winners (64) £2,500
First Round Qualifying winners (72) £2,700
Second Round Qualifying winner (36) £3,250
Third Round Qualifying winners (40) £4,000
First Round Proper winners (32) £5,000

http://www.thefa.com/fa-trophy/more/fa-trophy-prize-fund

The cheeseburger was good as was the chips, a total of £5 and little need to eat anything else that day.

The game was a feisty game played generally in good spirit. The referee might have allowed a bit of laxity before sending off Rob Sheridan for two fairly benign yellow cards. He also might have wanted to update himself on the FA rules regarding sent off players. The player watched the remainder of the game from the touchline behind a barrier essentially with me, though might have discarded his shirt …..

Having checked the rules. This is what it says “A player, substitute or substituted player who has been sent off must leave the vicinity of the field of play and the technical area.
Read more at http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/laws/football-11-11/law-12—fouls-and-misconduct.aspx#7B9Jzt2xM5bxoOlT.99 ”

So I guess it depends on the interpretation of what constitutes the vicinity of play.The game ended Molesey 1 Didcot Town 0.

A visit to non league does restore faith in what football can and should be like. Yes, there is swearing and fouling, but generally less of the antics that have become embedded in league players. A player on the ground does mean he is hurt.

I did however have a little smile at the programme and clearly Didcot were keeping their team a secret. Not sure I have ever seen a programme actually that did not list at least a guess at the various team members.