Views from the Sieve

North Ferriby United has folded .., I great little club with friendly fans..

Such a shame. I loved our trip there a couple of seasons back. A great club, the fans were excellent and very welcoming plus we had a resounding win. I knew they were plummeting the leagues but had no idea it was that bad.

Getting promoted to the national league, in a way, was the worst thing that could have ever happened to them.

I remember them winning the FA Trophy only 4 years ago at Wembley.

Will their demise have a knock-on effect regarding how many clubs get relegated from our league?

They got wound up because they couldn't pay a debt off for £8K. The D+R accounts went out to full members this week and I got to see them for the first time ever. I was pretty shocked at the number of things that have to be paid out when you run a club this size and also how little money we get in through our operations. I was also surprised at how little the staff are paid, including the players themselves. I have absolutely no idea how we stayed in business last summer but if it wasn't for the Americans there would be plenty of league 1/2 forums lamenting the sad demise of 'that little team from Dagenham that we played a few years back with the friendly fans'. Dagenham, North Ferriby, Stockport, Darlington, Rushden, Kettering etc. - not much difference except we got the lifesaving investment when we needed it. They didn't.

A lousy 8k.
A real shame when you consider the amount of money in football today.