Season Preview - The Opposition (Part Four)

Here’s the penultimate installment of our look at the teams who will be taking to the pitch shaking like jellies this season at the prospect of facing eleven charging Bulls...

Peterborough Sports

Sports have been desperately doing up their ground to ensure compliance with whatever NLN ground regulations The Citadel at Farsley is somehow seemingly exempt from. Full back and ex-Sloppie Matt Tootle has the sort of name to suggest that he‘s arrived from Camberwick Green (look it up younger people, you’ll never look back) but in fact he’s arrived from Grantham, home town of Margaret Thatcher (look her up younger people, you’ll…well, let’s not go there, this is a politics-free seasonal preview). As far as I know they’ve done whatever was needed in terms of tarting up 651 Lincoln Road, and can aim to ruffle a few feathers as the smallest side in the division just as they did last season. However, perhaps they’re no longer the smallest club in the division, because now we have…

Rushall Olympic

Rushall glories in being a suburb of Walsall, a location the ancient Greeks had lined up as a venue for the Olympics if Olympia had proved to be a bit too meh to host the Games, hence the name of the club. So, this is a relatively quick and easy one to get to if the M6 behaves itself, and a new one to boot. Olympic will be competing at this level for the first time in their history after beating Nuneaton on penalties in the Southern Prem Central play-off final.

The Pics announced the signing of Stanley Anaebonam in early June before the winger had the sense to move to Hereford.

Scarborough Athletic

Like Buxton, the Seadogs enjoyed an impressive first season in the NLN last time around. Like Buxton, they narrowly missed out on the play-offs (in their case by having scored just two goals fewer over the season than Gloucester), and like Buxton they have a plastic pitch. Unlike Buxton they seem inclined to be a bit cheaty when they feel the need.

Striker Frank Mulhern from Farsley, and midfielder Alex Purver, supporters’ player of the season at Darlington last season, look like very smart signings. I think they'll go well.

 

Scunthorpe United

Huge favourites to bounce back after an alarming slide down the pyramid. It would be just typical if they choose Hereford’s division as the one in which to get their house in order and arrest that slide. If they can do that you’d imagine anyone finishing above them will be champions. They pinched James Dean from Peterborough Sports as their manager in the middle of last season, with Dean taking his best player, Dion Sembie-Ferris, with him. Neither could do anything to prevent the Iron from suffering yet another relegation. However, DSF scored 39 in 56 games for Sports before his move and will presumably, now with National League experience under his belt, be an even greater threat this time. He could well be the division’s standout player in 2023/24. If they’ve got a few others of similar quality (and they're throwing two-year contracts at EFL players to tie them to the Glanford Park rollercoaster that currently only seems to go down), they should go close to living up to the expectations of the bookies.

The Iron have brought in ten summer signings to date, including Ross Barrows from Altrincham, who has experienced promotion from the NLN before with Kings Lynn. Compared to Hereford, that massive overhaul merely looks like fine-tuning, but compared to anyone else it suggests a desire to ensure an affordable wage bill whilst at the same time making a fresh start and attempting to remove what must be a fairly strong smell of failure by now in the home dressing room. Considerable off-the-pitch internecine battles could prove a distraction, hopefully.

Southport

With Kettering and Leamington gone from the division, Southport have lost two of their fellow pantomime villains. That said, they were unusually subdued in defeat at Edgar Street last season, although given that the match was something like their fifth on the road consecutively they were probably just too exhausted to be horrible. Having been in the play-off positions pre-Christmas, they finished last season staggeringly badly, losing their last eight matches and avoiding relegation by a point.

Defender Harry Flowers has joined from relegated Telford. He arrived at the Bucks Head last season from Curzon expected to go very well. After an awful start he improved markedly, and looks like an excellent signing for the Sandgrounders. Described to me by a Telford lifer as a ‘total headcase’, his arrival at Haig Avenue suggests that perhaps they’ll have their mojo back this season – oh joy.