Non-league Billingham Town lose 14-0 as just seven players turn up

flyingkiwiDK

Has anyone else read about this sorry state of affairs. The decline of non league football. Discuss..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/24803288

AFKABartram

Reminds me of the ruined Saturday nights / Sunday morning I used to have desperately trying to get a side out.

Can't play ringers at that level either

Greenie

Such a sad story, but never mind, for the fans of real football at least Man U are on TV every week!

North Lower Neil

Did well to keep the score at 14, to be fair.

guinnessaddick

Remember one Sunday morning only having 8 players and kept it 0-0 with 20 mins to go. We all ran out of steam and lost 5-0 in the end.

AFKABartram

I once gave a Churchillian style huddle speech following a game at Corinthian Casuals huge pitch (that was bigger than a small country) about us despite having only ten men, displaying the hearts of twelve.

Got the piss taken out of me for about twelve years for that one

golfaddick

I once played for a team in Dartford (I wont say which one, but it had my younger bro as player/manager !) and the opposition turned up late..........well half did, the other half didn't turn up at all. Their captain/manager explained that there had been a few disagreements between the team that morning and if we wanted to play could he "borrow" a couple of players to make a team up. As he was telling us this we noticed that his arm was dripping with blood and he looked like he'd just done 15 rounds with Mike Tyson..........we declined his offer and they forfeited the game.

tangoflash

Bit sad for a team of that stature. Sunday league is a different animal. We used to have plenty of players not turn up on a sunday morning, either cos they were pissed up from the night before or picked up a knock playing on Saturday, yet too much effort to pick up the bloody phone to say they wouldn't make it. Played with 8 players before and won 3-0. Recall one time many moons ago, it was the last game of the season, we were 2nd in the league & due to play the top team who were 3 pts above us with a GD of about 4 better. Despite being a massive game, they only turned up with 7 or 8 players. Rather than play the match, a couple of them said they were going home, so they would forfeit the match, giving us an automatic 2-0 win.

Fortunately, the ref was on to their plan and reported them and the league deducted them points. Found out later it was a ploy dreamed up by them, as we were in red hot form and they were scraping draws towards the end.................