Judgement Dave blog

With the exception of the Star Bar, the most under-rated aspect of modern society has to be the wonder that is Non-League Football.

I was gawping at some professional footballers recently and realised they have absolutely nothing in common with me. I can’t identify with a man with a diamond-encrusted Range Rover, a diamond-encrusted wife from X-Idol and a set of diamond-encrusted children named after exotically-scented laundry detergents.

Chelsea and Man Utd are the footballing equivalent of watching Hester Blumenthal preparing a prize and extraordinary delicacy out of snails and syrup and caviar and marmite – you watch knowing its silly entertainment but you know a real person could never do it.

And then there’s Real Madrid – they are simply absurd.

My soccer-suasion is now firmly in the direction of the likes of the Farsley Celtics and Enfield Towns of this world. And I’m a-gonna tell you why.

This week - the pre-match atmosphere.

Last Tuesday evening I strolled off of the Liverpool Street-to-Hertford East evening train at Brimsdown station and made my way to Goldsdown Road – home of Enfield Town FC. Using the floodlights like a wandering star, I made my way to the kiosky-thing, handed over my season-ticket (yes, I have one of those) and was immediately accosted by young urchin screaming "Golden Goal!"

For those that can’t work it out, you win a prize if the first goal scored is in the same minute as is written on your bit of paper. Imagine that at the Emirates Stadium; a schoolgirl carrying a cleaned-out ice cream tub with folded bits of paper, all of which had a number between 1 or 90 on it. I invariably seem to always pick out 1 or 90 and nothing in-between, but for 50p you can’t grumble.

Moments later I’m at the tea hut, purchasing Bovril and Enfield Town’s world-famous Bread Pudding for the princely sum of £1 for the two. You’ll have to go to the road by-pass-esque Premier Stadia if you prefer the collapsible, lukewarm, £5 hot dogs.

Bread Pudding in-hand, I and my astonishly-polished programme (£1.50) make our way to the stand made from a converted cow-shed from where I can actually see the players when they arrive on field. The young roustabouts in the crowd shout the Christian names of the players ("Go on, Rudi!" for instance, if the player in question is Rudi). That’s slightly better than the tiny blobs I get to see when I head off to White Hart Lane.

Fingers covered in lovely Bready Puddingy sugar, I’m ready for the whistle to get things started. Non-league wins this week hands down.

Results so far:

Non-league 1, Premier League 0.