With pretty much everything in this season's football tied up (with only a few promotion play-offs to be decided), it's time for the Official Reject Of The Year Awards for the top ten levels of the English football pyramid!
It should not come as a massive surprise that these all come from the nether regions of those league tables which are accessible from Wikipedia - where amateur teams are plentiful and ridiculous mismatches are far more likely to occur where any given club might only be able to field half a team on a particularly bad day.
Dishonourable mentions:
Gornal Athletic of the West Midlands (Regional) League Premier Division (which is at level 10, not 9) scored only 9 points all season with a mere two wins, and conceded 130 goals - but Wellington Amateurs, who finished one place above them with 23 points (and were also relegated) conceded 149.
Hailsham Town of the Southern Combination Football League Premier Division (level 9) went one worse than Gornal, finishing with 8 points from 38 games, 22 points behind their nearest rivals, 28 points from safety and 158 goals in the back of their own net (which still wasn't the worst record of them all). Meanwhile, football in Cornwall may be rather isolated from the rest of the country (Truro City excepted) but in the South West Peninsula League Premier Division (again, level 10, not 9),
St Blazey - home of the Eden Project - managed to do even worse, picking up only 7 points in 38 games, and were one of five teams in the division who conceded a century of goals; Newquay, one place above them and reprieved from relegation by the resignation of Tiverton Town Reserves, conceded more. Then there's
Epsom Athletic, who either won or lost all their games in the Combined Counties League Division One (level 10), never being satisfied with a draw - thing is, they only won two games and finished with 6 points. Also, they only played 33 games rather than the full 34 - "two matches were left unplayed because the visiting clubs were unable to raise teams" - I'll bet that Epsom were one of those away teams, and it's not as if it'd have made much difference to their season anyway.
Bronze:
Burton Park Wanderers, of the United Counties League Division One (level 10).
Their record for the season: played 36, won 1, drew 4, lost 31, scored 20, conceded 128, 7 points.
Ordinarily this would stand out on its own, but Burton Park Wanderers beat Epsom into the reject medal table because of the league they're in and the company they keep. This was a genuine three-way race for the wooden spoon with two other clubs I've noted the continuing woes of in recent seasons - second from bottom Stewarts & Lloyds Corby (9 points) and third from bottom Woodford United (12 points). These three were 23 points adrift of the rest of the field, and if Whittlesey Athletic hadn't resigned from the league and every team had had two more games to play, the gap might have been even wider. It's as if the United Counties League have their very own equivalents of Caterham, Marussia and HRT, all vying to be the first to the bottom. And with these three teams all taking points off each other (for instance, Burton and Stewarts beat each other once each, and Burton drew with Woodford) this makes Burton's race to the bottom even more rejectful than Epsom's self-inflicted downfall.
Silver:
Southam United, of the Midland Football League Division One (level 10).
Their record for the season: played 38, won 0, drawn 5, lost 33, scored 12, conceded 195, 5 points.
I am reminded of a scene in Atletico Partick (for those of you who remember this epic tale of Glaswegian Sunday League football in 1995 starring Gordon "National Lottery, and also Hudzen 10" Kennedy) in which the goalkeeper, Pettigrew, has to play a match in his carpet slippers, because his witchcraft-obsessed wife has put a curse on his football boots. I can think of no other explanation for how any defence can be quite so leaky; Southam United conceded more goals than any other club in any of the top ten levels in English football - and considering the far and wide spread of the pyramid, that's a lot of divisions. The next worst record I can find for goals conceded in the top ten levels is in the 160s - still a lot, but 30 fewer than Southam managed. No wonder they finished 29 points below also-relegated Pelsall Villa and never won a game all season.
Gold:
Ellistown & Ibstock United, of the East Midlands Counties Football League (level 10).
Their record for the season: played 42, won 0, drew 3, lost 39, scored 23, conceded 158, 3 points.
I said there were a lot of divisions in the first ten levels of the English football pyramid; I counted, and there are 47 - some of the leagues have divisions at level 11 or below, but I haven't counted those. Give a round of applause, if you will, for the
first team (this is an important distinction) with the worst record in any of these 47 divisions. Along the course of suffering more defeats than any Premiership club will play league fixtures all season, Ellistown & Ibstock United recorded the heaviest home defeat of the season - 11-0 when Birstall United came to visit, had the longest losing run in the division at 10 games (neither end of which was marked with a win) and only managed to finish within 15 points of their closest challengers because Greenwood Meadows had 18 points deducted and had fallen to second bottom behind Gedling Miners Welfare, with a still-unimpressive 24 points. Amazingly, Ellistown & Ibstock United didn't take the hardest
away thrashing of the season - that dishonour went to fourth-bottom Graham Street Prims, who came to Dunkirk FC (yes, the team representing the small residential part of Nottingham I live in) and headed home after a 13-0 battering. Over the course of the season, though, Ellistown & Ibstock were more consistently terrible.
And yet, even they are overshadowed...
Extra-Special Platinum Award:
Ferring, of the Southern Combination Division Two.
Their record for the season: played 28, won 0, drew 0, lost 28, scored 14, conceded 300, 0 points.
Technically, Ferring shouldn't be part of this round-up because Division Two sits at level 11, but their record is so dismal it can't be ignored. Genuinely, they may as well have stayed at home for every match as their points record was equalled by AFC Roffey Club who resigned from the league in August without playing a match - and didn't have to take a leathering every single match day. Ferring shipped an average of more than ten goals per game - but just to hammer the point home,
I've found their full results list for the season, and if any Blackburn Rovers or Coventry City fans are reading this, just be grateful your results list didn't look like this:
20th August 2016: Jarvis Brook 18 Ferring 0 (att: 75)
23rd August 2016: Ferring 1 Bosham 15 (att: 18)
27th August 2016: Ferring 2 Rottingdean Village 9 (att: 16)
29th August 2016: Worthing Town Leisure 18 Ferring 1 (att: 50)
3rd September 2016: Cowfold 18 Ferring 0 (att: 42)
17th September 2016: Ferring 0 Alfold 3 (att: 120)
24th September 2016: Westfield 9 Ferring 0 (att: 41)
1st October 2016: Ferring 1 Lancing United 12 (att: 13)
8th October 2016: Rottingdean Village 5 Ferring 3 (att: 15) - what a result!
15th October 2016: Rustington 5 Ferring 0 (att: 45)
22nd October 2016: Ferring 0 Montpelier Villa 11 (att: 17)
29th October 2016: Roffey 13 Ferring 1 (att: 58)
12th November 2016: Ferring 0 Rustington 8 (att: 12)
19th November 2016: Ferring 1 Clymping 7 (att: 12)
26th November 2016: Bosham 16 Ferring 1 (att: 35)
3rd December 2016: Ferring 0 Westfield 5 (att: 12)
10th December 2016: Ferring 1 Sidlesham 5 (att: 35)
17th December 2016: Lancing United 13 Ferring 0 (att: 10)
26th December 2016: Upper Beeding 14 Ferring 0 (att: 35) - "we wish you a Merry Christmas... nah, only joking!"
2nd January 2017: Ferring 0 Worthing Town Leisure 8 (att: 25) - "...and a Happy New Year... or maybe not!"
7th January 2017: Clymping 8 Ferring 0 (att: 18)
14th January 2017: Montpelier Villa 13 Ferring 0 (att: 5) - those five were probably Montpelier Villa fans
28th January 2017: Alfold 8 Ferring 0 (att: 27)
4th February 2017: Ferring 0 Cowfold 12 (att: 14)
11th February 2017: Ferring 0 Upper Beeding 17 (att: 16)
18th February 2017: Sidlesham 12 Ferring 0 (att: 16)
4th March 2017: Ferring 2 Jarvis Brook 11 (att: 18)
11th March 2017: Ferring 0 Roffey 7 (att: 60)
...the league continued until 29th April, but Ferring had played all their games six weeks before the end of the season, lost them all, and were probably glad it was all over. Possibly, someone in the league management knew this might happen - it's entirely possible they had the kind of meltdown that caused Woodford United to crash to such a horrific string of results a few years ago - and made sure all their fixtures were piled up as early as possible. Jarvis Brook, who scored 29 goals against Ferring in two games, won the division.
Amazingly, the 120 people who watched Ferring only lose 3-0 to Alfold - who finished second bottom - was the highest attendance for any match in the division that season; it's almost as if there were people who wanted to see the only chance Ferring might have of a decent result... either that or it was gallows humour as the two worst teams in the division fought for the scraps at the bottom of the bird table. The lowest attendance of them all was Upper Beeding's 3-0 home victory against Worthing Town Leisure in late August, which
nobody went to watch.
And finally...
Would Have Been An Extra-Special Platinum Award If It Hadn't Been For Ferring:
Wantage Town Reserves, of the Hellenic League Division One East, who also lost all 26 of their games this season; however, I'm going to let them off one of these awards, because they're a reserve team, hence why I said Ellistown & Ibstock had the worst record for a first team. Wantage Town's first team, incidentally, were relegated from the Southern League Division One South & West (the division won with minimal effort by Hereford), which suggests they shouldn't be fielding a reserve team at all next season.
After all that, I'm off for a late-night pie and a mug of Bovril.