Resilient League still holding its own

SOCCER ANGLES:SLOWER, LOWER, weaker. Every sporting offering in the coming three weeks that is deemed not to be of gold medal standard will have Olympic levels of dissent thrown at it, which brings us to the opening of the Football League season today.

You may feel as if you have to squint through the smog of Beijing to see it but at 12.45pm Birmingham City kick off against Sheffield United and English football is rolling again.

This is the Championship, a division now looked upon with fear and near revulsion by established Premier League clubs, some of their fans and a few commentators. It is seen as most definitely not the place to be and tales of administration and financial meltdown from Luton and Rotherham and elsewhere over the past two years have added to the impression that the Football League is experiencing the economic buffeting that has London banks teetering and Newcastle bars closing.

The collapse of the lower tiers of English football has been described for many years as "inevitable", long before the €383 million implosion of ITV Digital six years ago. Gaining true figures on solvency is a difficult and shifting task but what can be said is there has been no mass subsidence, not even at the bottom of the old Fourth Division, now League Two. Clubs such as Accrington Stanley and Aldershot have come back.

Central to this resilience have been supporters. The aggregate total of paying fans across the three divisions of the Football League last season was 16.2 million - it was 10.9 million when the Premier League broke away in 1992. There is no figure for repeat attendance within that total - which must be quite a percentage - but total turnover is at €500 million.

According to the League, the Championship is now the sixth richest division in Europe and a new television deal kicks in next season. It is with BBC and Sky and is worth £337 million over three years. As a spokesman said: "This is not a season to be relegated from the Championship, but it is one to get promoted from League One."

The damned United - Leeds - are favourites to come up but locally they will find rivals in Huddersfield Town.

As you scan results in the coming weeks, Huddersfield's crowds will catch the eye. Last season they averaged 10,500 at home but 16,000 season tickets have been sold this summer. The reason is price: €128.

It is Huddersfield's centenary and the club have reacted imaginatively. Bigger crowds, better atmospheres, should produce improved performances from Town - that is the theory - and other clubs and leagues will be watching Huddersfield from afar to see if this works. In Germany tickets are notoriously affordable but too often in Britain - and Ireland - prices do not reflect average household income, they reflect players' wages.

Last season in League Two below, neighbours Bradford City initiated this cheap ticketing and despite never being in serious contention for promotion, attendances rose 57 per cent to 13,000. Imagine if they were any good. The flaw in this is that Bradford fans said sold season tickets were counted even when people did not turn up.

But if it engenders interest and, more importantly, establishes a culture of going to games among the young, then there are examples to be examined by both the leagues in Ireland.

"What Bradford and Huddersfield are doing is very interesting," said the League spokesman. "Bradford were brave, ground-breaking, they had just been relegated and had this big empty stadium. It was successful and clearly influential."

Whether Bradford and Huddersfield can sustain their policy economically is the question, but the goodwill created means that a scent of promotion will provoke added anticipation locally. Which is what it is all about.

"It's definitely interesting," Gary Speed said of the Football League, "and it's definitely competitive." Now at Sheffield United and with his 39th birthday looming, Speed is about to embark on a 23rd season as a professional. He knows that next Saturday the Premier League will add to noise from Beijing and make the League's efforts to be heard ever harder.

But the Championship alone contains 16 former Premier League clubs and while he knows the patronising opinion that exists from without, from within, Speed said: "There's not low self-esteem. Yes, the top four in the Premier League are miles away from us, a huge gap, but the bottom of the Premier League isn't.

"There are big clubs here and good atmospheres. Nottingham Forest have just come up and play good football. I saw Leeds last season under Gary McAllister and they were the same, Bristol City surprised and impressed me with how much football they played in our division in their first season back up. Okay, tactically at times it can be long ball, but that is as much about fear. On many occasions the games are good and the football is good. It just doesn't get the coverage."