‘Shouldn’t the manager be fired?’ – How league ladders brought an unexpected interest in Non-League football

Spending over 20 years of married life with someone who is absolutely uninterested in football changed unexpectedly this season thanks to an old-fashioned piece of ephemera revived by the internet.

Having been forced to watch Polish non league football as the first, and for some years, only child of a sports mad father, rather soured any prospect of my wife Ewa developing a lifelong love of the game. Instead for her it was linked with feeling frozen and being surrounded by chain smoking men. Thus having got married to a sports mad husband, there was little to no chance of her actually joining me in my obsession, with scant appreciation for the irony that I also supported a non league club.

Instead she waved me off every Saturday, happy with the prospect of a quiet afternoon, having experienced the alternative of me watching football on TV at home which generally led to an exasperated response of “they can’t hear you dear” as I voiced my frustration at the screen.

If I was going to an away match she would generally have little or no idea how far away my destination was, given the small town nature of my club’s league status, with the relatively recent innovation of the WhatsApp location button often leading to a response to my shared pin of “OMG you’re at the end of the world”.

On my return the only scoreline she was concerned with was the number of pints sunk. 

The only exception to this was when I casually mentioned I would be seeing Ryan Reynolds at the match that evening. Initially this was met with disdain only to find myself deluged with messages at half time when it became apparent via social media that he had indeed decided to make his first ever visit to a football match at my club.

All this changed over the course of the last season thanks to the return of one of the delights of my childhood, the league ladders. Given away free with Shoot! magazine at the start of every season, they would allow a diligent child to monitor the progress of clubs across the football leagues of England and Scotland every Sunday, as following the discovery of the league tables in the newspaper, the position of each team could be checked, and if necessary updated by moving it into its new slot.

Easy access to the requisite technology to produce the ladders to order and anyone wanting to buy them via internet marketplaces, led to a resourceful individual selling bespoke groups of ladders, including one featuring solely the National Leagues at steps five and six of the English football pyramid. Personally I found it an easier way to keep up with the relative fortunes of clubs across the divisions, by actively moving them up and down, rather than scanning a league table online.

Purchased in August for under a tenner including postage via Sport In Focus on Etsy, I eagerly set about puncturing the team tabs from their packaging in order to set up the tables, neatly set against a backdrop of my team’s star defender Kevin Lokko in action at title winning Bromley the previous season. Sadly that match ended in a humbling 4-1 defeat and proved rather an appropriate theme for the campaign ahead.

Related: What happens when the FA Cup brings the BBC cameras to your club

A poor start meant my team were already in the relegation places, and after updating the tables I furtively hid the ladders under a pile of papers on the coffee table. However their inevitable discovery by my other half brought a rather unexpected decision that they should instead be attached to the fridge via some of the many magnets gathered on our annual summer holiday. 

The table provided a clear context of my team’s lowly status and inevitably a conversation piece. Being in full view meant there was no escaping the lack of success that the season offered leading to questions after every defeat such as “maybe you need a new goalkeeper?” or “shouldn’t the manager be fired?”. The occasional win would lead to a rare expression of delight, particularly if the sunlit uplands of lower mid table were reached.  

As the season went on, questions would be asked about that day’s opponents with an appropriate response e.g. “oh they’re in second place so I guess you’ll lose”. 

When it became clear that relegation was more than likely, attention turned to the National South division and a review of the likely away match destinations with their much closer proximity to home.

A brief jump up the table which was so unexpected I sent on a screenshot ahead of my journey home  proved to be a false dawn and there was no real hope that the drop would be avoided despite a six match unbeaten run to end the season.

This will prove to be only a fleeting disappointment though in the greater context of finally being able to have a meaningful domestic conversation about the fortunes of Maidenhead United. My first job on arriving back from my summer holiday in August will be to order a 2025/26 set of National League ladders. 

This piece was originally published in the Maidenhead United matchday programme which is available as a digital publication.