Now, my journey into the world of Non-League football is unconventional, but I guess there is not too many conventional entries into the mad world of football in general really!
Anyway…let us rewind the clock to the 11th January 2024!
Now me and my family are all massive Gillingham FC fans, a sentence you will not hear uttered by many you come across I can assure you! Now up until 2023 we had Mr Paul Scally in charge of our club a figure who divided opinion to say the least, especially so in the last few years of his tenure. Anyway, how is this relevant I hear you ask! Well those last few years, Priestfield Stadium and the club as a whole was not a very nice place to be around. There was a huge rift in the fanbase, anger towards Mr Scally and huge underinvestment and care in general taken to the fans matchday experience, an experience which basically consisted of a poor game of football, most likely a loss and not much else.
It was around this time that I started to work with some Non-League football clubs as part of my regular 9-5 work. This was where everything changed and coincidentally where the story of Through the Turnstile truly began.
After experiencing some of the amazing things these clubs were doing and speaking to the people involved, I really started to get a taste of what football really should be all about and the huge disparity between the two match day experiences. I spoke to a few people about this and they stated they too had been in a similar situation and it was the whole reason behind them turning their back on their own club and adopting a brand new one within Non-League. In fact the more I spoke to the more common the story got, it was then that I thought I needed to put this whole situation into words, look at why Non-League football was seeing so much success and growth and involve as many people as possible that had made the switch away from EFL/Premier League teams.
And the result of this was…over 6000 words, 12 interviews and many many edits - culminating in my first ever Non-League football article:
The Rise of Non-League Football
Now off the back of this article, of which it was overwhelmingly for myself, received incredibly positively, led to me being asked to write more features in the future around Non-League football and specifically about certain clubs, what they are like and what they do.
Now I did some thinking and some research and soon discovered that 1) I would love to do just that and 2) There wasn’t really anybody else doing it. That was enough for me, I was focused on making something happen.
Fast forwarding now to 6th February 2024 and the release of my first ever full club feature under the freshly created ‘Through the Turnstile of Non-League Football’ brand - I decided to go with my hometown Chatham Town and I was pretty pleased with how it come out to be honest!
You can have a read of it yourself if you wanted: Chatham Town FC Feature
27 clubs in total have now been covered on the site and it has been a pleasure to learn about each and every one of them, including speaking to fans and staff at each.
I myself am a huge lover of print media and it was therefore not long into that first year of the website that I got the itch to start my own publication to compliment the online offering. It was then that ‘Parks to Pitches’ magazine was created , a dedicated quarterly production with the 1st Edition being released in November 2024. In addition to Non-League content throughout every edition also comes with a free matchday ticket for a different club.
1st Edition - Chatham Town
2nd Edition - Great Yarmouth Town
3rd Edition - Corinthian-Casuals
The 4th edition is due out in August but if you fancied a bit of a magazine fix, you can snare all three of the magazines in one bundle right here:
In addition to the above I also volunteer my video editing skills for Nuneaton Town whereby I edit their matchday highlights for them.
So…there you have it, you are now all up to speed with my background in Non-League as well as what I currently do within the game.
So what can you expect from me on here?
I will be contributing to this brand new Substack weekly column by providing some topical thought pieces on anything and everything to do with Non-League football!
I look forward to welcoming you all on the journey together.
