Fruit Machine Chat

Well, not really. As you're probably aware though, Jason Scotland is a Scottish-based Trinidad and Tobago player striker.
(1st division no less - about the same quality as the English Vauxhall Conference)

http://www.scottishquest.com/howscottish/game.html

You need to play a (very-easy) game before you get to hear the song. Interested to hear what English people think of it!

The Vauxhall conference?? It's not the 90s ant more Rich! :P

It's been the Nationwide conference for a while now

Matt

Really? You'll be telling me next that the Beazer Homes League is no more.

.. incidentally, why is every other football league a "league", whilst the conference is called a conference?

Hmm is it something to do with the conference being amateur trying to get into the league?

Dunno

Not sure really.....must be an old traditional name. The conference is about 80% professional these days, most semi-pro sides can't compete any more.

Matt

May be mostly pro now but when it was first dreamt up it won't have been.

History

The Football Conference was formed in 1979 from teams in the Northern Premier League and Southern League and was originally known as the Alliance Premier League. Since 1984 it has been publicly known by the names of a succession of official title sponsors. The name was officially changed to the Football Conference in 1986. Below is a list of sponsors and what they chose to call the league:

1984-1986: Gola (Gola League)
1986-1998: General Motors (GM Vauxhall Conference)
1998-2007: Nationwide Building Society (Nationwide Conference)

Automatic promotion and relegation between the Conference and The Football League was first introduced for one club in 1987, and increased to two in 2003.

The Football Conference had a single division for the first 25 years of its existence, but beginning with the 2004-05 season expanded to three divisions. The original division was renamed Conference National and two new regional divisions one level down were introduced, Conference North and Conference South. The new clubs were drawn from the Northern Premier League, Southern League, and Isthmian League according to guidelines developed by the NLS Committee.

Only six teams have had the honour of winning the Conference on two occasions; Altrincham (1980, 1981), Barnet (1991, 2005), Enfield (1983, 1986), Kidderminster Harriers (1994, 2000) Macclesfield Town (1995, 1997) and Maidstone United (1984, 1989). Kidderminster also finished 2nd in 1997. Of those sides to have won it twice, only two were promoted to the football league: Macclesfield Town in 1997 and Kidderminster Harriers in 2000. The previous occasions neither of the clubs' grounds were up to standard, so they were both denied promotion. Altrincham are the only team in history to retain the title, mainly due to the fact that in the era of the first success in 1980, there was no automatic promotion to the Football League.

Is your team not languishing down in the Conference these days Matt?

cardinal richelieu wrote:Is your team not languishing down in the Conference these days Matt?

Indeed we are, but the less of that mentioned, the better! I can't believe we were 1 games away from the premier league in 1991! Lost in the playoffs to Leicester!

Matt

i couldn't open that video because my computer is a fossil.

i have nothing against Scots and see no reason why a proud Scot should support anyone but his own national team. what irks me is bitter jocks who behave in a niggardly way like that berk andrew murray who has decided to wear a paraguay shirt out of spite. so i have changed my avatar to strike a blow, you should see my car i am the biggest chav in the world.
barmy army

Chris Moyles, Mick Hucknall, Davina McColl, ... they're all very irritating, but none of them make me turn my telly / radio off like Andy Murray. His voice drives you up the wall and he's forever moaning about something.

As I've said before on this board, I'm quite happy to see England do well at the World Cup as long as they don't win the bloody thing. Don't think we'd ever hear the last of it (we still haven't heard the last of 1966 )

And I would absolutely love T & T to do England, but only due to their underdog status, their similar mentality to the Scottish fans ( # we're shite, and we know we are #), and the fact that they've got a player called Stern John.