Sunday League Fc

[Margaret Sieverding]

Sundayleague football, is a term used in Britain, Ireland and Australia to describe the amateur association football competitions which take place on Sunday rather than the more usual Saturday. The term pub league may also be used, owing to the number of public houses that enter teams. Sunday league football is stereotypically seen as being of far lower quality than Saturday football and involving players who are often unfit or hungover.[1] As a result, the term "Sunday league" can be used to describe a performance at any level of football which is seen as inept or amateurish.[2][3] Despite this perception some leagues include players who also play at a high level of semi-professional football on Saturdays.[4]

Sunday leagues are sanctioned by the local County Football Association. Sunday leagues do not form part of the hierarchical English football league system, but Sunday teams can opt to switch to Saturday play and potentially rise up the levels of the league system. The FA Sunday Cup is a national knock-out competition for English Sunday league football teams administered by the FA, which has been staged since 1964.[4]

The most prominent single location for Sunday league football is Hackney Marshes in east London, which has been called the "spiritual home" of Sunday league.[5] The oldest Sunday League in England is the Edmonton & District Sunday Football League, based in North London, which was formed in 1925.[6]

In 1991, Danny Baker hosted The Game, a TV series focusing on East London Sunday League matches at Hackney Marshes, on Friday nights on LWT. The title of the show was a spoof of The Match, formerly The Big Match, the banner under which major league matches were televised on ITV at the time. The series ran for six episodes, culminating in the final of the Dick Coppock Cup (for Division Four of the league).[9]

Being a player-manger of a Sunday league team is exactly like managing a professional team, except all your players are shit and nobody listens to a single word you say. But there are things about life you can only learn when you've been scythed to the ground by a Johnny Vegas lookalike in neon pink boots. For example, how the solution to all of life's problems is invariably going full-on Bruce Lee toward the bloke's shins, severing his knee ligaments and getting sent off.

During my five-year reign as a player-manager I've gained some pretty profound insights into my fellow man. Sunday league football is a boiling hot shot of truth, stuffed right down your gullet, seven days a week. You don't need to watch your mate pursuing a completely unobtainable one-night stand across London with bright orange Doritos dust around his mouth to realise that his life is spiralling out of control. No. You just need to see him get beaten to a header by a tiny man.

DEATH IS INEVITABLE

Nothing sums up the futility of existence better than defending a 0-0 balls-to-the-wall draw for 90 minutes, only for the lad who thinks he's Lionel Messi but plays like Emile Heskey to nutmeg your keeper in the last minute and run to the corner flag to dance the Egyptian. Nothing says, "God doesn't exist" better than the Egyptian. Absolutely nothing on this earth.

YOU'VE GOT NO FANS

All you want to do, all the time, is talk about how your two centre midfielders play like they've got one eye on a halftime fag and the other on your sister. Or that your fifteen games in hand means you're definitely going to win the league. But here's the thing: nobody's interested. Your girlfriend or boyfriend doesn't care what you get up to on Sunday afternoon, just so long as you don't come home with a compound fracture or a tattoo on the shaft of your penis declaring your undying love for Olivier Giroud.

SPEND MORE THAN A NANOSECOND PICKING YOUR GROUND

If you are filled with such self-loathing that your home ground requires three separate journeys on public transport to get to then you may as well just fucking retire and let someone capable do your job. Seriously. Resign this second.

NEVER LET RINGERS PLAY

If anyone in your team has "a mate" or "knows somebody" who is apparently "very good" then I can tell you right fucking now that, unless they're best mates with Cristiano Ronaldo, they won't be. You may as well play your 15-year-old dog as a false nine, because they're bound to be better than whichever malcoordinated numpty you're thinking of inviting.

YOU PLAYING 4-4-FUCKING-2 AND THAT'S THAT

British people cannot play any other formation. It's never going to happen, so stop trying to implement a 3-5-2 system with a deep-lying trequartista and a couple of overflowing wingbacks.

STUPID FOOTBALL YOU SPEAK MAKE

If there's one surefire thing football does, it's turn you into a gabbling idiot on a weekly basis whose dialect seems to have been ripped straight from the first draft of Alan Shearer's autobiography. Over Christmas I found myself shouting "no pen!" at my mum as she poured me some wine and she almost knocked the glass over. I tell my mates to "get stuck in" on the dance-floor. Recently, I found myself shouting my own name like a fucking Pokmon as I ran past an old woman to the final seat on the tube. Football lingo is infecting my real life, Contagion-style.

EVEN WHEN YOU LOSE 9-0, YOU ARE OBVIOUSLY THE BETTER TEAM

When this happened to us recently, we huddled together in the goal and our captain looked us each in the eye and said, "Lads, those blokes were fuckin' shite." And he was right. No team has ever, or will ever, beat you objectively. Blame it on the weather, blame it on the ref, but whatever you do, never, ever, ever blame it on your team.

Never let anyone know they're important or they'll wind up spending every Saturday night in Soho, doing lines off someone's cock. My best advice would be tell your finest player he's shit at all opportunities. Constantly bench him and habitually get him to put up the nets because there are few things more soul destroying than having your mate's nut-sack squished against the back of your neck as he tries to peg it up. Break him down until he can never play football again. And then make him captain. Only someone who has known true despair can lead you to comfortable mid-table obscurity in the London Football League Division 7.

For most pub league footballers, Ali Dia-style identity fraud is the only hope of testing themselves against the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi and Jamie Vardy. But the PlayR SmartCoach now offers any amateur players the chance to measure their speed, power and stamina levels against the very best.

I tried it out on a rainy Sunday afternoon in Hammersmith, west London, for my Sunday League team PASALB FC, playing at a level several below the lowest tier at which they stop counting. The PLAYR technology works by syncing a small pebble-shaped device with your smart phone, then slipping the device into a pocket within a skintight vest worn under your football kit.

Once we were underway, I barely noticed the vest, even in its undersized form. The only effect it had on my performance was knowing my speed and distance covered were being measured, and thus my instinct to spend large periods of the game with my hands on my hips whining at my teammates was tempered.

The app also records your total sprint distance, your "power" - the number of sprints undertaken at a speed over 18kph - and a vast range of detailed data you can compare against anyone else wearing the same tech.

I was playing on the right-wing and the average for professionals is likely reduced by players in positions that demand less running, but to put it into context, Tottenham's Christian Eriksen averages a league high 12.4km per match, and the very fastest players, including Manchester City winger Leroy Sane, hit little over 35kph at full pelt.

With the COVID-19 lockdown easing in early September 2020 there seemed to be a renewed sense of hope, celebration and life within the UK and our communities. Shops, restaurants and other venues were reopening and another glimmer of the re-emergence of normality was through the colour, sounds and excitement of the Sunday Football leagues, also restarting at this time.

I had taken for granted the beauty and importance of the Sunday Leagues and felt compelled to start this body of work documenting their role in our culture within the UK. You will see here the team, the opposition, the referees, the over enthusiastic managers, the dog walkers, the vapers, the hoodies, the supporters, the ramblers and the many others that make up the communities of where we live.

Chicagoland Sunday Baseball (CSB) came together to find a way to keep the better players in the house leagues. The solution was simple, allow the kids to play in their house league and then play a part-time travel season on Sundays when the fields were empty, all for a fraction of the cost of full-time travel baseball.

The only qualification to enter the league is that your roster is filled with players who only play in their house league. The games are generally on Sundays, but we are all working together to also have Wednesday nights available for additional games.

In 2007 CSB hosted its first tournament over the Memorial Day weekend. The tournament had 52 teams battle to be crowned the tournament champions. The tournament was played in 6 locations with all the pool champions advancing to play the final round hosted by the Oak Forest and Palos baseball programs. The 2017 tournament had 200 teams that were hosted by 14 towns.

Mixers are held during the off seasons for 2 main purposes: One being to help new players find a team to play on, and Two to help mix up the players from different teams to get to know one another and build up comradery between players.

The PASS fees cover the league being sanctioned under US Club, PSRA (referee) assigning, city field use fees and League Apps technology. Referees will now be paid directly by the PSRA with payments from BUSC. The referee fees will be collected in advance as part of the team registration fee. Currently teams pay $1500 per season. The fee is paid via credit card during the team registration process or sent by check to the League Administrator. It is the responsibility of the team managers to collect player fees to cover the costs of the team registration. If the PASS league generates a profit/reserve, the post-season recap meeting will determine how to use, donate, or distribute this. Money is also collected from Mixers to help pay for the League.

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