This Saturday is Non-League Day. You may have seen people talking about it on TWTD before and you may not care, in which case you may stop reading now. Fair enough.

For those still with me, on international weekends these days we know the drill: no Premier League or Championship fixtures. This creates a football vacuum, especially when the England game is switched to Friday or Saturday evening, and thousands are left bereft of a game.

So, to stop thousands of football fans pining for some action, James Doe had the idea of encouraging the bereaved to go and support their local side, to fill that Saturday afternoon void.

The idea is simple, get a bit more interest and funding to the grassroots game. But it is more than that, it also serves to remind people that they probably sit slap bang in the middle of a smaller footballing community than the one they usually inhabit, one which they regularly eschew to travel to see the great and good. And Nathan Ellington. The point is not to change footy viewing habits, though it can, just to give a little nudge that the smaller community is just as deserving of time and patronage.

Despite this localising force, many clubs in the top two tiers actually actively promote Non-League Day. Sometimes this is just a mention on their million hits a week website but others get involved with orchestrated campaigns to promote the day and their various local communities.

Even if the clubs are seeing it as a box ticked in their corporate social responsibility spreadsheet, their benevolence works both ways. On a very simplistic level, that bigger club might be poaching talent from the smaller one at some time or might need to use the smaller ground for reserve or youth fixtures, it pays to keep relationships sweet. Also, the big and small teams are unlikely to ever be competitors, they provide different things.

One of the more common ways the smaller clubs try to pull fans in on Non-League Day is by offering discounted entry for season ticket holders of [insert name of league club]. Surprisingly, and perhaps short-sightedly, few of Suffolk’s non-league sides appear to be actively trying to lure in the locals.

Although the point isn’t to steal fans, with Ipswich Town wallowing around in the Championship’s basement and fans wondering why they bother, the local sides could be making hay at this time, especially with the ‘good product’ on offer at many. Bury are currently a cracking side, Lowestoft are challengers, Woodbridge have the advantage of proximity (and nice chips), while Braintree could be two years away from being in the same league as Ipswich.

However, it appears that only Bury have chosen to do anything of note. The Blues are offering £5 off entry to anyone with a Premier League or Championship season ticket. On Saturday they face Harrow Borough in the Ryman Premier Division and now is as good a time to see them as any. Fresh from a 10-1 humbling of AFC Sudbury on Tuesday night, Bury are likely to be good value for another win against lowly Harrow.

Currently fourth in the league, Bury are only three points off the top and have two games in hand on the leader as they look to follow Braintree up to into the lofty heights of Conference football.

If you want something more, something unique, out of the day and you’re based up north, a few non-league sides have actually got together to make a day of it. Three local Manchester sides have arranged to stagger their kick-offs and are shipping fans around to all three games, one after the other, in an all-day orgy of football. The BBC Non-League Show and sponsors Blue Square will be on the fun bus. I’m just trying to imagine the Football League sanctioning changed kick-off times so that supporters of many different football teams can get together and drink while attending football matches.

If you’re not based up North, nor in Suffolk and just fancy going to a game, the Non-League Day website has an interactive map to locate the fixture nearest you but. Just click the map for access to the club’s website to see what they have on offer. The beer will be nicer, the club bar cosier, the prices lower, the ground more terrace-y and the football on offer might surprise you. It might not, of course, you can’t have everything.

Thanks to Vestanpance from the excellent www.therealfacup.co.uk. Twitter: @therealfacup.

itfcjoe added 13:58 - Oct 12 I will be heading to Bury Town. Will be nice to see an upwardly mobile Suffolk Club with good links to the community in action!
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sparks added 23:47 - Oct 12 I heartily endorse this product and / or blog. Non league football has many attractions and I am forever thankful to Mr Vestanpance for opening my eyes to it. I dare you all to try it.
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yorksblue added 11:01 - Oct 13 Get further down A14 to J32 for Histon in Blue Square North. Very warm and friendly club, who need as many through the gates as possible. Come on you Stutes.
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AndrewPC added 12:26 - Oct 13 As some one who was brought up in Bury and who went as a youngster to watch games at their old ground in king's Road, I rember that the music palyed before the game was Telstar by The Shadows and when the players came out in file onto the pitch you could smell the embrocation on their legs and the spare footballs were stiched and heavy laying at the dug outs in case the match ball was kicked out of the ground. Usually a top crowd was around 300 people. Although I have a vague memory that we got to the 4th round of FA Cup qualifying in 1962 and there was a crowd of over 1,200. That is all from memory. But, to summarise the football: we were CRAP !

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Edmunds5 added 14:49 - Oct 13 Nice blog, nothing better than Non-League football, and has a sense of reality about it, and a comfortable, natural feel. Its also a good experience because sometimes the team you watch can move up divisions, for example I went and watched Fleetwood a few years back when they were not as rich and a couple of leagues lower than now and now they are flying in League two and have players who I wouldnt have imagined them to sign a few years back. Would agree about Histon, played there one evening and the pitch was lovely and it has a really nice stand on one side of the pitch as well as a nice lounge above, even if the wotsits were out of date.

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