Six-way title tilts and angry Bulls: non-league football stories you may have missed

The Guardian

25-04-2025

Six years after Bury were expelled from the league, last weekend they smashed a North West Counties league record by attracting a crowd of 8,719 to Gigg Lane as they sealed the first promotion since they were reborn by thrashing Burscough 4-0, a 15th successive victory. A measure of this achievement: the previous record crowd, the 6,023 who watched FC United of Manchester lose 1-0 to Great Harwood Town, was set in April 2006 (the 5,834 that saw Bury draw 2-2 with Ramsbottom United on Boxing Day sits at No 3 on the list); only one team in non-league football, Southend in the division above the division above the division above the division above them, have had more people at a game this season; Bury's average attendance in the ninth tier of English football, 3,315, is bigger than that of five teams in League Two and one in League One, as well as seven in the Portuguese top flight; that record attendance was 2.7 times larger than the total attendance at the other 11 games played in their division on the final day. A couple of other familiar names with big fanbases also hope to end the season with a celebration: Scunthorpe United, with the fourth-biggest average attendance in non-league football, are two points behind Kidderminster Harriers and Brackley Town in the hunt for a single automatic promotion spot in National League North (though Brackley are at home to rock-bottom Farsley Celtic, who are on a run even sillier than Bury's having lost their past 17 league games), and Torquay, fifth in the attendance table, are in the National League South wild shake-up.
The final day dawns for National League South with fully 25% of its teams capable of winning it. Truro City go into it above Torquay at the top because their goal difference is better by two (they have scored one more goal), Eastbourne Borough and Worthing are a further point back, and Boreham Wood and Dorking Wanderers are two behind them (with the division's best and second-best goal difference respectively). Disappointingly none of the teams play any of the others on the last day, with the pick of the fixtures Truro's against St Albans City, who need to do better than Salisbury (the two are level on points but Salisbury's goal difference is better by one) to stay up. A few weeks ago it looked as if the title was Worthing's to win: on 15 March they had won their past five, led the league by four and had a game in hand on every other side in the top 10. 'We're very hard to play against at the moment and I think we're improving, we're getting better,' their manager, Chris Agutter, said after they beat Hemel Hempstead Town that day. 'We're becoming more ruthless as well. We just need to keep working hard, and the results touch wood should keep going in the right direction.' Since then: two wins, two draws, three defeats. They end their season at Enfield, who could go down if Salisbury and St Albans win.
Also quite exciting: the Isthmian Premier, where the top three sides have the same number of points (wafer-thin margins here: Billericay Town lead Horsham by a single goal of goal difference, and have scored two more, with Dartford needing both to slip up; if Billericay and Horsham were to end up level on points, goal difference and goals scored Horsham would go up on games won). While in fifth and sixth Dover Athletic and unexpected promotion contenders Chichester City, also level on points, have a playoff playoff at Oaklands.
The race for the Combined Counties Premier Division South title could hardly have been more exciting going into the final round of fixtures last weekend: Jersey Bulls led Redhill on goal difference, with Whyteleafe one point behind. The Bulls, the only one of those three playing at home, had sold out Springfield Stadium for the visit of Sandhurst. But on the Friday night they were informed that they were being deducted three points and fined £120 for fielding an illegible player in last month's 4-0 win over Tooting & Mitcham. 'We understand the frustration, the anger, and the disbelief from supporters. We feel it too,' the club said in a statement. 'When we started this club, we had nothing but the dream of giving our island a football team it deserves, one that we hoped our wonderful island community would take to its hearts, and one that we knew could be successful in the English leagues. That dream is not over. We have achieved so much in such a short space of time that we must not let an error, a technicality, and a decision that is out of our hands divide us.' For most of the final afternoon Whyteleafe, who led Fleet Town from the 12th minute, were going up, only for Redhill to score a 93rd-minute winner and pip them, but still the identity of the champions is unknown. The Bulls, who also won on the final day, have submitted an appeal, saying there is 'significant mitigation' concerning a 'lack of clarity on the number of yellow cards' (the situation does, to be fair, sound a bit confusing: after the player picked up his 10th booking of the season he was left out for two games before returning to the team. But it turned out that one of those 10 bookings didn't count because it came in the FA Vase, which meant he was not officially suspended until after his next one, his first after the club thought he had been suspended). The league is investigating and the playoffs – due to get under way on Saturday – have been postponed.
Real Bedford's march towards inevitable Premier League glory continues, the club having long since wrapped up the Southern League Division One Central. It is the club's third league title in as many years since they were bought by Bedfordian, podcaster and crypto enthusiast Peter McCormack, who declared at the time that the purchase was 'part of a childhood dream to own a local Bedford club' and that 'I've always wanted to bring league football to the town … I am a Bitcoiner, we aim big'. A £3.5m investment from the Olympic rowers and crypto traders Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, announced last year, was finalised in February, and in the first match the now co-owners' attended the team beat Kings Langley 1-0 to seal promotion (on the same day Real Bedford Women beat London Seaward 11-1 to win their own second successive league title). The empire is still growing: last month McCormack gave the club a sibling town centre cafe, Real Coffee.
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Spare a thought for Welton Rovers of the Western League Premier Division (but not for long), who ended with four points from 38 matches, one win and a goal difference of -152. That win was a riproaring 7-4 victory over St Blazey in February which ended their worst period of the season, four games which they lost by an aggregate score of 32-1. If you think you could do better, they advertised for a new first-team manager on Monday. Also spare a thought for Sittingbourne, who became only the second Isthmian South East team since 2018 (when there were two more of them, so four extra games) to reach 100 points but still won't be rewarded with automatic promotion. That's because the first, Ramsgate, also did it this year, and are on 108. They play each other on Saturday.