The Lower League Thread

Nah, he was chairman a while back but stepped down. He's still majority shareholder and bank rolls everything, not actually sure who the chairman is currently!

Fixture release on 22nd June supposedly. Does the FL (or League 2 at least) do a local derby match on Boxing Days? That was one of the only good things about non-league.

They do take those things into account, last year we had Yeovil at home, a few years back we had Torquay at home.

Would be good if so, potentially Donny, Notts County or Mansfield for us. I still can't quite believe we're back in League 2. I must have watched the 3rd goal from Wembley about 100 times now, best moment of my life.

Here it is again....

John Sheridan is a weird, weird guy. The gift that keeps on giving. Leaves Oldham to manage Notts

He really is. When he was here there were rumours everywhere that he wanted to leave and be closer to his family, which is fair enough, so when he did leave it was a surprise to see him pitch up at Newport midway through the season - 'though it is closer to Yorkshire I suppose. Then when his old club Oldham came calling, right on his doorstep, and he kept them up, it seemed only natural that he would stay with them and try and push them on and yet now here he is at Notts County!

Rumours were that there was no money at Oldham, so perhaps that's why he's not bothered with staying although IIRC Notts County's owner is trying to sell up anyway so there wouldn't be much money about there I would have imagined!

Have Notts County had their transfer embargo lifted yet?

The whole situation at Notts is just as weird. Trew was refusing to pay Mansfield 20k for ticket sales so they were put a transfer embargo which is still not lifted I'm led to believe. Then they go all out and appoint someone like John Sheridan, who might a weird thundercunt, but still a pretty decent appointment for Notts (better than Moniz or Fullarton anyway). What does this say? Do they have some mega rich new owner in the pipelines? Is Trew going all out with the cash himself again? Clearly there must be something to motivate Shezdog to termine his contract at Oldham and join Notts. But what that might be, I'm yet to find out

Probably a fuck off big crate of lager or something, knowing Shez.

Hull promoted back to the Premier League, beating Sheffield Wednesday 1-0.

Not a brilliant game, Wednesday never really turned up and the best team won, although that wasn't saying much.

Great prediction from this poster

Just had a feeling Sheff Weds would huff and puff but come up short, whereas Hull just have that extra quality and experience.

So far, I've variously predicted Brighton, Bradford, Portsmouth and Sheffield Wednesday for play-off wins.

Good luck Barnsley and Plymouth.

On behalf of everyone - thank you Barnsley.

Nooooooooooooo fek you Mill! Best away day in this division gone i am disgusted

Fantastic stuff, Barnsley. Quite an achievement from them to come back from where they were just 6 months ago.

Wimbledon, formed by fans in 2002, promoted to League One.

Fantastic story. Brilliant to watch.

Well....shit. Gonna be a southern league is our League 1 next year isn't it? Pleased for the real dons in one way but wanted Plymouth to go up but they do deserve it.

We are sooooo going down next season

Hard luck Vercoe! Better team on the day won though from what I watched. See you next season and we can battle it out for top spot!

Which one of you is going to What'sApp Akinfenwa?

AFC Wimbledon

Incredible achievement.

Definitely won't be us, however popular he would be with the fans (although tbh I'm not that keen on him). Our manager makes our strikers work very hard so wouldn't ever fit our system.

He'll probably end up at Eastleigh or Forest Green in the Conference I would have thought, they'll pay him the £££.

Akinfenwa is so full of himself that he and his massive ego would fit right in at FGR or Notts County

Best team won on the day, can have no complaints about the result and the Wimbledon fans were fantastic. On a side note I wasn't overly impressed with Wembley as a football stadium. Or the fucking prices in the pubs around it and we couldn't go to any other pubs because both sets of fans had "designated pubs". I paid £10 - ten fucking pounds - for a double vodka and red bull.

Anyway, back to football, Wimbledon knew how to beat us and did it fantastically. On the subject of Akinfenwa, the first thing he did after coming on was to completely flatten our centre half in a pointlessly aggressive 50/50 header which resulted in him having to be stretchered off with an oxygen supply and at no point afterwards, not even as soon as the ref blew up for the foul and it was painfully obvious he was in agony, did Akinfenwa check if he was alright or apologise or even check on the situation. I may be reading too much into, it may be sour grapes, but I think that's pretty bad of him.

I'm concerned now we'll lose any chance we had of keeping our best players, except our ultimate best player who's already said he's staying next year to help us win the league. There are rumours that Oxford are coming in for our team of the season captain as well as Wigan who have supposedly been keeping an eye on him all season. Our top goal scorer for the past two seasons (not including this one) is being heavily linked with a reunion with John Sheridan at Notts County/a move to Portsmouth who put in "big money" bids for him last summer anyway and now his contract is up, although tbf everyone's is. And I'm not even joking - three players are contracted through until the end of the next season and that's only because they had clauses in their contracts whereby if they played a certain number of games they would earn an extension.

Looking forward to another season of entitled Portsmouth fans on Twitter.

Did you guys have The Torch pub, just up the road from Wembley Park station? Was designated pubs for all games I think. That place was rocking when we were down there, even the pavements outside were jammed. But yeah £4.50 a pint in there, bit steep for us northerners!

And Wembley itself is just ridiculous for food/drink, we never buy anything inside.

Looking forward to the fixture release now, hoping for Plymouth away in August sometime so I can catch it while I'm still living down in Cornwall. I think we have 6 contracted players at the moment but not panicking just yet...

Yeah we had the Torch, I tried to reason with them and tell them I had only wanted to the one drink, not two. It's a bit steep for us who don't live in London too!

When are the fixtures released? I know the first game is 6th August, wouldn't be a bad game in the late summer sun! I've heard lots of blokes saying they're looking forward to Grimsby away purely for the decent fish and chips.

Fixtures out 22nd June I think. Fish and chips highly recommended if you do visit, and we've got a pretty decent bar in the away end now run by the supporters trust.

From the Venkys to Oyston. What the fuck is wrong in Gary Bowyer's head?

He must just like to be punished!

Owen Coyle taking over at Blackburn.

Congratulations on your relegation then

I said they'd go down last season, and they didn't. That said, Owen Coyle coming in with no strikers worthy of the name at the club and with players like Hanley leaving at the same time as the cessation of parachute payments (with a previous FFP embargo having been in place) doesn't exactly look positive on the outside.