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Kathy

Mick Dennis in the Express today

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I would type the whole article out for you but I am supposed to be working!! One of the best pieces I have seen in the nationals by a long stretch. Read it!

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I would rather chew a lightbulb than actually buy the Daily Express, and their website must be the sparsest of any national newspaper. So I will have to go on wondering what this article actually said. But Mick Dennis is a well known City fan, and if memory serves me right he actually covered the canaries for the Evening News many moons ago. So I expect he''s rather chuffed at the moment!

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The gist of it was the loyalty despite lower expectations of lower league clubs and the camaraderie of most of their supporters. Delia was quoted as saying she would miss trips to places like Rotherham and Walsall for this very reason. He was scathing about Newcastle fans booing their own teams and Chelsea replacing their manager despite top six finishes. Cant go into it any more. Will get the sack!

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True fans, chairman and managers who care about football can be seen in the nationwide (1-3) - citing city as a prime example of what the game is all about - rather than the approach being adopted by the top 5 premier clubs...

Good piece

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The full story was

LET me see if I''ve got this right.

At Chelsea, finishing second to the unbeaten champions will cost the manager his job.

At Liverpool they are flogging a big chunk of the club to south-east Asia in order to try to catch the Frenchmen at Arsenal and the Russian at Chelsea.

At Newcastle the chairman is ranting and the fans are booing because they might only finish fifth or sixth.

And at Portsmouth the chairman wants a new coach because they have improved their league position by only 21 places in two years.

Yep, that''s the preposterous Premiership.

Meanwhile, Delia Smith has made a poignant and perceptive remark about Norwich City''s departure from the Nationwide League.

She said: "I saw an interview with Steve Bruce about Birmingham''s first season in the Premiership in which he said he didn''t miss going to Rotherham on a Tuesday night. Well, I will miss going to Rotherham and Walsall and places like that."

Cynics will say: "Don''t worry Delia, you''ll be back at Rotherham soon enough."

But let me tell you what I believe she meant.

Both Rotherham and Walsall have bigger and supposedly better neighbours a few motorway miles away but are kept in business by the incurable devotion of good people.

And in eight seasons of traipsing to Grimsby, Port Vale, Luton and the like, Delia has met scores and scores of good people - none of them in it for kudos or glory, none of them expecting instant success, all of them hopelessly committed to football.

To them, the notion that Newcastle''s usually loyal fans might boo their team for not finishing fourth in the Premiership is an obscene nonsense. But then Nationwide fans could teach most Premiership posers about support.

Let me tell you about some of the things which happened in the Nationwide League at the weekend.

In the First Division, Coventry, with nothing to play for, beat Crystal Palace but a late, late goal for West Ham at Wigan put Palace into the play-offs. When the West Ham result reached Highfield Road, the Coventry fans rose to applaud Palace.

In the Second Division, Queens Park Rangers, whose supporters remained loyal through several bitter seasons of decay and disappointment, took 8,000 to Sheffield Wednesday.

And in the Third Division, 22,562 turned up at Hull. It was their sixth crowd of more than 20,000 this season and meant that their average attendance was more than 16,000 - in the Third Division, remember.

During the eight seasons in which the Football League has been sponsored by Nationwide, attendances across the three divisions have swelled by almost a third to 14.8million a season.

It is a remarkable story of sustained success in the face of financial attrition.

Delia''s Norwich finished their Football League stay with a win at Crewe.

Afterwards, home fans spilled on to the pitch, shook hands with their Norwich counterparts and wished them luck for next season.

Everyone then joined in an impromptu party which involved a game of 300-a-side football, with a steward in one goal and a policeman in the other.

For the last two months opposition supporters have been wishing them luck. It is as if they feel Norwich - plus West Brom and whoever goes up through the play-offs - will be representing the Nationwide League next season; living the dream for decent people at well-run clubs all over the country.

Norwich may prosper in the Premiership but even if they drop straight down again they will be among friends. And they will be among realistic chairmen and real supporters.

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That just about summed it up. I was at Crewe and on the pitch but sadly didn''t see the game at the end. What a spectacle that must have been.

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Thanks very much AL (are you any relation to James?).
The article reflects my views quite closely. The Nationwide League is football more like it used to be. Real people in it for the love of the game and their club, not the cash or the glory. The Premier League is pure showbiz, weighed down with people and organisations in it purely to make loadsamoney. And despite all the hype it''s not actually that strong a league - witness the distinct lack of European trophies recently.
Don''t get me wrong, it''s great to be back in the Prem, but for me this is mainly because it should secure City''s long term viability. It''s going to be a real adventure, and let''s stay there as long as we can, but if it ever turned into continual and grim struggle to avoid the drop, then I really wouldn''t be averse to another exciting spell in the Nationwide.

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An article on a similar vein espousing the good points of the Nationwide, that it was good because it wasn''t the Premiership was written in yesterday,s Times by Martin Samuel.

Perhaps the Hacks are reminiscing about football in the good old days when it was a sport rather than a business.

I shall miss the Nationwide, I rather enjoyed its smaller, friendly atmosphere. However for the sake of the money and the exposure we needed Prem Football.

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