Match Day Magazine Sittingbourne v Hythe Town and Faversham Town April 2016

CAN YOU believe the season is on the final straight? Everyone says it every year but this one really has flown by.
It doesn’t seem all that long ago a long summer had finally ended and the season was kicking 0ff.
Now NLP Towers resembles a school maths lesson every Tuesday morning when we get back to our desks after two
days recovering from getting the previous week’s paper out.
It is abacuses and calculators at the ready as we work out who has games in hand over who, when are they playing
and, most importantly, who can win their league at the weekend.
In Sky Sports presenter Jeff Stelling’s recent column for The NLP, he spoke about making sure he’s fully up to speed
with all permutations to ensure he doesn’t promote or relegate a team live on Soccer Saturday by mistake.
Similarly, we want to make sure our photographers are at the right games to get those championship celebration pictures.
Regular readers may have seen we’ve introduced a new feature towards the end of this season – The NLP’s Match
of the Day. It’s what it says on the tin really, but the idea is to highlight a different game each week at all Steps of the
Pyramid.
Our largest 600-plus word reports are usually for National League games, so adding this spread will give more clubs
and their fans the chance to enjoy greater coverage with their sausage sarnie on a Sunday morning.
That’s the beauty of this time of the season, all over the country we’re spoilt for big games with lots riding on them.
At the time of writing, Folkestone Invicta are the first and only champions between Steps 1-4 so far. They won the
Ryman Division One South at a canter and it won’t be long before others are popping the bubbly too.
With that in mind, I went to AFC Sudbury last weekend for The NLP’s Match of the Day to see if they would be
crowned Ryman Division One North champions.
Jamie Godbold’s side did their bit with a 2-1 win against Wroxham but they needed other results to go their way and
nearest challengers Thurrock and Harlow Town didn’t slip up.
So alas, I haven’t reported live on my first champions of the season just yet. But at least we had a photographer
there just in case!
TALKING of celebrations, make sure you get voting for our annual National Game Awards.
Our postman is getting busier and the email inbox is filling up with fans across the country having their say on who
should be at our ceremony in May.
It always proves to be a great day as we recognise players, managers, teams and fans after a long, hard season.
You can see all the categories on our website – thenonleaguefootballpaper.com – as well as voting details.
The awards bash is back at Chelsea’s Stamford Bridge this year. The last time was four years ago when Fleetwood
Town’s Jamie Vardy won the player of the year prize. Wonder what happened to him...
A big shout out to the San Jose Earthquakes U13 squad who toured the UK last week. Pictured above
are the team after a 7-1 victory against Sittingbourne F.C. U13s at the University of Kent. The players
from the UK enjoyed meeting their US counterparts in a game arranged by Global Image Sports.