Kelsey fears more players will quit NCEL for Step 7

Athersley Rec manager Shane Kelsey. Picture: The Saturday Boy

Athersley Rec manager Shane Kelsey fears more players will quit the NCEL for Step 7 if the season does start and the expected midweek fixture chaos takes centre stage.

Given the Government’s latest announcement regarding gatherings late on Tuesday night, whether a full season is even feasible continues to be a huge talking point. However, that is different debate entirely and as it stands the FA and all leagues are pressing ahead with plans to play a normal campaign in a shortened time frame. 

That means more travelling and more midweek games. Because of this the number of NCEL players who have dropped into Step 7 is rising weekly. 

A substantial number of Barnsley-based footballers have turned their backs on the NCEL and sought refuge in the Sheffield & Hallamshire Senior League, away from the envisaged carnage. 

In Leeds, Billy Law, Chris Ovington, Richard Collier and Danny Stimpson are going to be playing in the Yorkshire Amateur League for Middleton.

Kelsey is not surprised by the exodus and fully expects others to follow.

“There’s more commitment than there has been before, especially with starting the season late,” Kelsey told Non League Yorkshire.

“It is going to be Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday-Tuesday, with training sessions thrown in on Thursdays. Before you know it you’re out of the house three or four days a week.

“I’ve been in this situation myself when my first child was born. My priorities changed altogether and football came second and I can relate to a lot of the lads who have stepped down. A lot will have young families and we always say in Non League, your family comes first and so it should.

“You can side with the lads and understand why they have stepped down. It is not cheap to run a car, as daft as it sounds. You having to leave work early to get to some of these games for not a great deal of money. That little bit you might be picking up you might be using it to pay for petrol or loss hours at work.

“Ultimately if you break it down, you may be operating at a loss. A football field is a football field to me and if you’re playing Step 5 or Step 7 it has to add up to meet your work-life balance.

“Your job is more important these days and a lot of lads can’t afford to be turning down shifts for a little bit of money to go to places like Skegness in midweek. It is absolutely nuts, let’s be right. 

“If you’re not getting paid to play, why would you bother? I’ve mentioned it before, but you have Grimsby Borough coming to us on a Tuesday night. You’re going to see a lot of young lads, inexperienced lads packing out benches because I think you’re now going to get lads not willing to miss work, especially those with families.

“I think it (player leaving for Step 7) could be a huge problem to ourselves and clubs who either pay next to nothing or nothing at all. The midweek games, especially when the bad weather comes, is going to have more negative effects than positive ones.

“(Losing players to Step 7) It is in the back of my mind because you have to be prepared for that and as a management team we need to work hard and be prepared if that does happen.”

Athersley have one more pre-season friendly – at Nostell Miners Welfare on Friday night – before the NCEL officially starts on September 19th.

The Rec play Cheadle Town in the FA Vase that day before visiting Handsworth on the Wednesday night. 

Athersley’s latest piece of preparation saw them draw 3-3 with Glasshoughton Welfare last night and Kelsey was happy with what he witnessed. 

“It was a good scrap, that’s the best way I’d put it,” he said.

“I wouldn’t say it was the best game of football. We showed great character and myself and the management team said we’d approach these last two pre-season friendlies in league-like scenarios.

“We won’t be making wholesale changes. Granted you still need to give lads the time, but as you saw when we made the changes, the tempo went out of it. That’s probably down to the lads tiring on a difficult pitch.

“I thought both teams worked their socks off and I think it was not a bad run-out.”

The Rec have played over ten fixtures during the longest pre-season in history and most of them have ended in defeat. 

“Results don’t look good, absolutely not, but that’s people looking on paper,” he said.

“A lot of the games where you see poor results contained reserves and trialists. Tonight was the first time we’ve only played our strongest eleven.

“In other games we’ve tried to give the lads as much game-time as possible. We’ve worked on fitness and we need people to be fit. If we’re only giving them 20 minutes here and there, they’re going to be nowhere near where we need them to be.

“I think today it showed what our work rate is all about and what we have done previously, albeit at the cost of some wins in pre-season, has started to come to the fore.”

If you have enjoyed reading Non League Yorkshire over the past few months, please consider making a donation to the not-for-profit organisation NLY Community Sport which provides sport for children and adults with disabilities and learning difficulties. CLICK HERE to visit the JustGiving page. There is a video at the bottom of the page showing our work.

NLY Community Sport, run by James Grayson and Connor Rollinson, has always had combatting social isolation at the top of our objectives when running our Disability Football teams. As we slowly return to ‘action’, our work will play an important role in reintroducing our players, who have disabilities and learning difficulties, back into society.

We have six teams, a mixture of Junior and Adult teams – Nostell MW DFC, Pontefract Pirates, Selby Disability Football Club and the South Yorkshire Superheroes (Barnsley) – across Yorkshire.

We have enjoyed great success over the past three years. Several of our players have represented Mencap GB in Geneva, including Billy Hobson from Selby and Greg Smith, whose story is quite inspiring.

Like most organisations, we have been affected financially by the Coronavirus and because of the cancelled Lucille Rollinson Memorial Tournament, we are down on projected income for the year and we have incurred losses in the last few months.

We have not been hit as badly as other organisations, but we do need raise £2000 to put us back at the level we were at in mid-March and enable us to make a difference once again to our players’ lives in the future, without having financial worries. Several of our players are suffering from effects of the lockdown and we are determined to be in the strongest position possible to provide services for them.

Any amount raised above £2000 will be put towards new projects (when the world returns to normal) designed to further benefit people with disabilities and learning difficulties. You can learn more about the organisation HERE and on our Facebook page.

Watch the video below to see highlights from our three years as an organisation. The video was produced for our players at the end of March to remind them of good memories from the last three years.

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