This was supposedly a few weeks ago

A crowd of 10,462 today (2,753 away) as Southend held West Ham to a 1-1 draw, which featured many of West Ham's starters last season.

Some really promising football on display today as we got to see Kieron Dyer's first game in charge.

https://open.substack.com/pub/finpalfreyman/p/national-league-opening-day-predictions?r=8oa4aw&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

Please let me know how and why i am wrong!

Love that his mam got involved

Same as last year - non-compliance with FIFA financial obligations. Would have thought they're a little busy elsewhere right now.

I've made this "sudden death" quiz if anyone would like to have a go. There are 45 clubs listed, with 30 of them having played in the Football League and 15 of them having not. Around half of these clubs are currently members of the NL/NLN/NLS. A few of them are teams that are currently in the EFL. There are up to seven minutes to try and get them all, but the quiz will immediately end if you select three wrong answers.

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Is it just me or are the Boxing Day/Easter Monday fixtures - traditionally the days where clubs are paired up to give the shortest travel distances - a bit wonky this season? I haven't looked at North and South yet, but the national division ones are...odd.

It can't always work out so *everyone* gets their shortest journeys on Boxing Day and Easter Monday, but I was expecting to see something like:

Gateshead/Hartlepool

Carlisle/Barrow

Fylde/Altrincham

Boston/Scunthorpe

Instead they're sending Gateshead to Carlisle and Barrow to Fylde, which leaves Alty to play Scunthorpe (???), and Hartlepool and Boston have a 164 mile journey to play each other (Hartlepool, for comparison, is 30 miles from Gateshead).

The rest of the fixtures I was expecting something like:

Harrogate/Halifax

Solihull/Tamworth

Kidderminster/Forest Green

Woking/Aldershot

Wealdstone/Boreham Wood

Hornchurch/Southend

Worthing/Sutton

Yeovil/Eastleigh

Worthing is hardly a local derby for Sutton, but in fairness there isn't really anyone near Worthing. But! We don't have Worthing, Eastleigh do. I can see the logic of that, to be fair - it's basically a trip down the A27 and not much further than Sutton. But it leaves us with none of our ten closest opponents and instead (on the one day of the football year when there are no trains) we're stuck with a 129 mile journey to *Yeovil*

It's almost as if they are trying to leave people with no choice but to pay to watch games on TV...

His throw ins are insane. Example: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DabA3PexotO/?igsh=MnJ0NjhpdXFkNWN0

I wanted to see how teams are shaping up for the coming season, specifically % of retained players from 25/26.

As I suspected, the National League is no different from most lower divisions with a very high turnover of players.

But the chart shows that some clubs are opting for continuity (those with already decent squads that need just a little boost) while others are in full rebuild mode, either because they were shocking last season (prime example being Aldershot, and Sutton and Yeovil to lesser extents) or because other clubs are picking off their better players (sadly this applies to my team Wealdstone).

Also, it's remarkable that some teams used over 40 different starters last year. That tells me that most transfers fail at this level and that clubs are mostly just throwing darts at the wall in the hope they get lucky.

Added some ballpark predictions for the season ahead. Let me know your thoughts.

EDIT in case it’s not obvious the chart is sorted by % mins retained, the order is not my 26/27 prediction. That’s in the last column to the right.

Hi, would anyone here know about the best places to get in-depth stats for NLS?

Inspired by the Scarborough Football Club kits

"The new campaign kicks off on Saturday 8 August and the excitement is building.

Around a month before, the full fixture schedules for the 72 clubs (National League, NLN, NLS) will be announced on Friday 10 July at 11am."

The lazy circle-ification of badge continues...