Daily Mail article

An eagle eyed reader has spotted that Charles Sale's column in the Daily Mail includes a small reference to our cause HERE


Please add comments on their site if you can and please send on any other references that you find elsewhere!

Resignations, Fines & Suspensions

Last night saw the the latest meeting of the Brentwood Sunday Football League at Herongate FC.  Jim Woolley (Secretary) and Peter Turner (Chairman) explained that a lot has happened since the last meeting back in January, and this fallout doesn't seem to be the end.

Main Points
1) The assistant secretary Howard Styles has resigned.
2) Chairman Peter Turner has resigned from his post as an ECFA director
3) As mentioned in the Brentwood Gazette the BSFL have been fined £1000 by the ECFA.  A jawdropping amount for a local league, especially when you consider that the ECFA have offered no assistance or advice with how to resolve this situation.  I understand that the league plans to appeal directly to the FA - hopefully they will see apply some sense and order to governance which has been sadly lacking on the ECFA's part.
4) The ECFA have forced the BSFL to fine any team not playing Harold Hill to recover pitch expenses.  This means each team not playing have to pay £90 directly to them to cover their pitch costs, despite the fact that in some cases Harold Hill have played a friendly game and recouped their pitch costs.
5) Last and by not means least - the Senior division has been suspended with immediate effect.  This is an unprecedented step and means that there will be no more Senior Division games this season and no winner this season.  Not good news, but at least we won't see Harold Hill win the league despite not playing any games as they had hoped for.  The Senior Cup and the KO cup are to continue.

Thanks
Firstly let me thank Howard Styles and Peter Turner.  They have been a credit to both the BSFL and the ECFA and both organisations will be poorer as a result.

Overview
So, the volunteer run BSFL continues to limp along while the full time Phil Sammons and ECFA in their ivory tower continue to assist Harold Hill at every possible stage.  So much for Phil's stated aim of "keeping grassroots football going" - from what we have seen so far all the ECFA appear to be interested in is ensuring that their charter standard team are able to wreak as much damage as possible, while fining clubs for standing up for the FA's Respect programme, stopping a division and probably sending some clubs to the wall.  Thanks Phil - good to see our ECFA affiliation fees and fine money hard at work there...

Lets hope that the FA see some sense and can recognise their own Respect programme when Jim and Peter represent the BSFL in the near future.

Respect Nomination
You can nominate the BSFL for its Respect stance here but the deadline is today.  Please complete the form and send over to the FA to raise awareness.

Campaign update Thanks to everyone for visiting the site so far - from the stats I can see that we have had some 2000 visitors.  In other news, the Twitter account remains suspended, hopefully this is temporary.  However if anyone wishes to comment then please add some comments to one of the articles here, or email the address on the right and I can add an article with you as a guest poster!

Brentwood Gazette coverage!

Our cause has reached the local press.  This weeks Brentwood Gazette out today features an nice article on page 72 in the sport section:

© Brentwood Gazette

We must try and contact as many people via Twitter or any other social media to help bring this to a wider audience!  Please add comments on what can be done to help or alternatively email the address on the right
UPDATE: Online copy of the article is HERE

Save the BSFL!

Respect.  The Football Association would have us believe that they are interested in stamping out bad behaviour in football.  Their high profile Respect campaign aims to reduce abuse and intimidation at all levels; from the Premier League down to grassroots level at your local park.  Yet when our Sunday football league tried to adhere to the very code of conduct that the FA tells us they believe in, their county association was blindly ignoring it to favour a team that lives the very values that the rest of the nation is trying to stamp out.  This team are now going to win their league, despite not playing a single game!!

The Brentwood Sunday Football League is a shining beacon for football in Essex.  Rarely are games left uncovered with no referee as the sportsmanship in the league is good enough that we actually have more referees than games for them to officiate!  This is because the teams in the league care about what happens in their league and want it to remain a great environment to play football in.  A team from our league actually won an award for sportsmanship from the Essex FA.

At last season’s AGM the teams decided that they no longer wanted Harold Hill team in their league as although the team in question play very good football, their sportsmanship was unacceptable and their respect for the referee and the opposition was non-existent.  Previous attempts by the ECFA to get Harold Hill to address this had failed.  The club were charged by the Essex FA for failing to control their players, so they were not recommended for inclusion in the 2011/12 season.  Both teams and players were no longer willing to have their week blighted by the abuse that they received and by 40 votes to 2 voted to remove Harold Hill from the league.

The teams were surprised therefore to find that at the first league meeting of the season Harold Hill were still there.  The Essex FA had overturned the BSFL decision as they had only given 13 days notice instead of the 14 days needed!  This was all the more surprising given that the AGM in June 2011 had been postponed once to ensure that Harold Hill could be charged by the ECFA. 

Given the nature of both physical and verbal abuse that Harold Hill dished out to the opposition, teams openly stated that they were not willing to play them due to fears for their safety and expected the Essex FA to be able to see their side of the argument rather than siding with the team showing no respect and poor sportsmanship.  Around half of the teams wrote to Phil Sammons (ECFA Chief Executive) to highlight their concerns.

As the 2011/12 season started as each team was scheduled to play Harold Hill, each team individually decided that they did not wish to expose their players to increased danger and so one by one their games were awarded to Harold Hill.  As it stands they will win the BSFL Senior league without playing a single game.

At the end of January 2012, the ECFA sent out a letter advising all clubs that if they continue failing to complete their fixtures then they are liable to be fined, thrown out of the league or banned from football! 

A staggering situation for the ECFA to take given that the BSFL clubs are acting in the best interests of the game for the players and referees welfare.  Not sure if the clubs close affiliation with the ECFA through their “Charter Standard” accreditation has any bearing here, but all clubs are now considering moving to other leagues to avoid playing Harold Hill.  The Brentwood League has been running for many decades now and this may be the final challenge it cannot overcome – being smothered by its own parent organisation. 

Please help bring our cause to a wider audience.  Contact Phil Sammons at the Essex County FA and demand justice - teams should be able to choose who plays in the league, NOT the Essex County FA!

UPDATE: 13/03: Phil Sammons email address is here: Phil.Sammons@essexfa.com