Solihull Moors - Ever so Ronery.....

As with most Poppies fans, my looking over the "Conference" scores and table is something only undertaken very occasionally these days.  The division seems evenly split between, "Wow, what the hell are they doing, slumming it in Conference National?", and "Wow, how the hell did they get into Conference National?"

The Country, yesterday

Quickly glimpsing over the Boxing Day scores, and noting all the lovely looking local derbies, my eye was snagged by the Maidenhead v Solihull Moors fixture.  Hey?  How is that a local derby?

Putting on my rarely worn "Investigative Journalist" hat, I checked further into this. It was Christmas.  I was bored.  Incredibly, at 94 miles from Solihull, Maidenhead, after nearby Wrexham (only 80 miles distant), IS Solihull's closest game!  With Wrexham drawing the similarly awful pairing of Barrow, Solihull and Maidenhead were locked together for a Boxing Day / New Years Day double-header.  It makes our old rivalry with 56-mile distant Boston Utd seem almost justifiably "local".

Further investigation beckoned. Were Solihull Borough really so far from everyone else in the National League?

A look over a map shone an unflattering light on top-flight non-league football in the centre of the country.  Where were all the clubs?  As our map ably shows, Solihull Moors have pretty much half of England to themselves.  But where are the other big Midland clubs?

A Moor, yesterday

Of the original league set-up back in 1978-79, fully a third of the division (us, Telford Utd, Stafford Rangers, Redditch Utd, Worcester City, Nuneaton Borough, and Bath City) were from the central swathe of the country.  Over the seasons other clubs such as Kidderminster Harriers, Boston Utd, Tamworth, Burton Albion, AFC Newport and Rushden & Diamonds (whatever happened to them?) all rose through the ranks to represent middle England in the top division.

Other clubs sportingly dropped out of the Football League to fill the "Midlands Quota" in the Nationwide National Top Division.  Teams like the mighty Hereford Utd, Oxford Utd, Luton Town, Cambridge Utd, Mansfield Town and even, at a push, Newport County all took temporary turns in breaking the North / South stranglehold on the "Conference".  Curiously. the enormous Eastern footballing powerhouse of Kings Lynn have never helped out.  Somehow, despite being the best team in the world, ever, they have yet to trouble the uppermost division of non-league football.  Amazing!

But, the days of the Midlands having ANY representation at the top table could be numbered.  At the moment Solihull Moors occupy the last relegation spot, several points from safety.  The North and South feeder divisions have few Midland pretenders, except, the mighty footballing outposts of Brackley and Hemel Hempstead!  God help us all!