Ian Ridley column: A winter break for the top-flight would help the Non-League game

By Ian Ridley
And so the ritual debate had its annual airing. “We play too much football over Christmas and New Year”, bleated those Premier League managers not yet fully integrated into English football culture and heritage. “We need a winter break”, said even those who do have a feel for the game.
On that, I’m with them, though perhaps not for the usual reasons and certainly not for a Non-League game which needs regular revenue. A break might indeed help the England national team at World Cup and European Championship finals competitions in summers, so wonderful do they look in qualifying, so weary – mentally and physically – when the real thing arrives.
But it is more than that. It is about improving the health of the game at Non-League level, which is often forgotten in such discussions, as well as national. And to give new impetus to the FA Cup, which again fell victim to top-flight managers sending out weakened teams in the third round last weekend in front of dwindling crowds. A more modern annual ritual.

Sacrosanct

The clamour is frequently for a Christmas and New Year blackout, or whiteout, for top teams and players.
It happens in most other European leagues, goes the argument. Not here it doesn’t and never should. That programme is sacrosanct, in tune with our way of life. The emergence into the cold air of Boxing Day with its footballing anticipation after the excess and confinement of Christmas Day must never die. Nor the blowing away of the New Year cobwebs.
It is after that that the break should come, until at least mid-January, with the top level of the English game restarting with the FA Cup’s third round. That way, there would be new appetite for the competition for fans desperate for action and top players in need of games who might otherwise have been rested.
Ah, but won’t clubs simply go abroad for lucrative friendlies? Let them indeed have a week of relaxing warm-weather training if it helps. And if they do play a friendly for money, the answer is simple: introduce a rule to say that no player with an international cap is eligible to play.
So how does the Non-League game fit into this?
It would keep playing of course and with no Premier League – and perhaps no Championship games, too, though clearly League One and League Two need to keep playing due to their tighter cash flows – the focus would be more on smaller clubs.
Then surely with a bigger interest would come bigger crowds and revenue from fans hungry to get their football fix.
Two birds with one stone – fresher and less jaded players, mentally and physically, for international tournaments at the highest level and impetus for the game’s lower orders to thrive.

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Sharing the wealth will improve FA image

You have to feel for the FA sometimes. Last year they endured fearful stick – much of it justified – for all sorts of governance issues within the game, chief among them diversity as they made such a mess of the Eniola Aluko case.
Last week, under pressure from Parliament, they came back with a series of responses, which included implementation of the Rooney Rule – which states that at least one black and minority ethnic candidate should be interviewed for vacant managers’ jobs – for the selection of the next England coach.
It received little praise. And there was even less for an initiative that will have huge beneficial repercussions for the Non-League game. So let’s put that right here.
This column and this newspaper have long campaigned for higher prize money in the earlier rounds of the FA Cup, arguing that the sums for the later rounds make little difference financially to the Premier League clubs whose reserve squads make it to the semi-finals before the first team takes over for the final.
Now the FA say that next season they will be more than doubling prize money for the competition, which currently stands at £13 million. For extra preliminary round winners there is £1,500; for fourth qualifying £12,500.
Imagine that being £3,000 for a Step 6 club or £25,000 for a National League club. I can picture the rubbing of hands of treasurers and finance directors already.
So bravo to the FA. As they now consult leagues about exactly how to distribute the money, talks which will hopefully involve a fairer share of TV monies, we urge them to point out to the big clubs how much good they can do in showing some solidarity with their smaller brethren.
Last week, Philippe Coutinho moved from Liverpool to Barcelona for £142 million. Meanwhile, Hartlepool United were crying out for £200,000 to avoid administration.
The Premier League – which has most of the power and money while the poor old FA has all the responsibility – is often criticised for not overseeing the trickle down of cash. This redistribution of wealth is one way they can improve their image with the Non-League fraternity.

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Bargain buys are on offer

Good to Bernard Mensah and Joe Ward as they make the step up from the National League to League One, moving respectively from Aldershot to Bristol Rovers and Woking to Peterborough United.
The common denominator is key figures at the two League clubs who have come up through the Non-League game, in Rovers’ manager Darrell Clarke and Posh director of football, the enduringly shrewd Barry Fry, who once told me he liked signing players from beneath the League as they were so hungry and had great attitudes.
It is a lesson for other League clubs. Not enough employ those with experience of the Non-League game where bargains, with big sell-on values, are to be had.

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I went to a Step 5 game over the holiday period and saw a cracking 2-2 draw, despite – or maybe because of – the sending off of one side’s manager and two of his players.
I was also reminded how neutrals see the game differently to those involved. Both sets of supporters, and teams, thought the referee had a stinker. I thought he was brave and strong.
 
*This article originally featured in The @NonLeaguePaper, which is available every Sunday and Monday