Congratulations! You’ve just been relegated. Welcome to the Northern Premier League! This might be your first time, or you might be skulking back through the trapdoor with your tail between your legs.

Little wonder. Glamour games at Volkswagen Motors and Workington are now, sadly, a thing of the past. You can either dwell on this, enjoying prolonged periods of dewy-eyed nostalgia as you recall muddy hoofball at the Brough Park. Or you can just get the hell on with it. If you choose the latter option, good luck. You’ll need it. No matter what words of comfort we try to offer you on these pages, the fact is your club is now moving the same circles as Cammell Laird, Prescot Cables, FC United of UnitedFCshire and Frickley. Bummer, dude.

Cry little man, cry. It really is that bad

‘Local favourite’ - Player who drinks in the same pub as a number of the fans.

‘The good old days’ - when it cost 20p to get in, you were legally allowed to sexually abuse the female turnstile operator, there was no such thing as homosexuality and there were no black players in the league.

‘Ex-league player’ - once had a schoolboy trial for Swindon.

‘Ex-League regular’ – he played half a season for Rochdale before he discovered prostitutes and crystal meth.

‘Run at 'em!’ - don't pass to your teammates, instead knock the into the defenders shins, then run past him as the ball rebounds back the other way.

‘Get it wide!’ - please pass the ball over here where I can see the play despite the dense fog that is currently descending on the ground.

‘Get into them!’ – punch their left-back in the face, please.

‘I’m just nipping to the loo’ – I’m just nipping over there to piss up that portacabin.

‘The pitch is a bit firm’ – the pitch resembles the frozen poles of Mars, and has about as much grass on it as the frozen poles of Mars.

‘It's going to be a test today!’ - we're crap and the opposition isn't.

‘Intimidating atmosphere’ – that fat bloke with the gold sovereign rings just called our number nine a ‘cunt’.

Shouting abuse at opposing players is as much a part of the matchday experience as overpriced burgers crawling with e-coli, paedophiles dressed as mascots and £6.32 pints of weak beer served by a slack-jawed teenager boasting the cognitive ability of a turnip.

In professional football, you’re able to scream abuse at your least favourite player in the knowledge that your vile, expletive-strewn vitriol will be forever lost in an ocean of vile, expletive-strewn vitriol swirling above several thousand other myopic Neanderthals sitting around you, meaning your target will never hear the undignified shrieks of hatred questioning the dignity of his sister.

In short, he remains an untouchable target, earning as he does more in an hour than you will ever earn during your life – and more, in fact, than if you were to be resurrected eight times and lived to 825. Of course, should you ever unexpectedly find yourself in a position where the player might be able to hear you, it is extremely rare for you to draw any kind of reaction from the player, since he regards supporters as worthless, gullible parasites for whom he has nothing but the deepest contempt.

Non-league players, however, have nothing to lose, and frequently think nothing of responding to criticism aimed at them from the terraces. In the case of Marcus Braunstack-Hulfroth, a left-back from Chatsworth Forest FC, this might take the form of a 56,000 word thesis, heavily influenced by the works of De Saussure, delivered to the boo-boys exploring the contextual semantic limitations of the word ‘cunt’. Or it could follow the example set by Sherwood Colliery’s no-nonsense midfielder Lee Grit in 1978/79; a left-hook delivered with such force that the culprit’s head ends up in the Red Cross donation bucket.

If you must shout abuse at a player in the Northern Premier League, be sure to follow impsTALK's recommendations below:

EXAMPLE 1

In this example, the fan (figure A) shouts abuse at the non-league player (figure B). With few people present, and due to the close proximity of the fan, it is immediately obvious to the player who the culprit is...

...and he exacts his revenge accordingly.

EXAMPLE 2

In this example, the fan (figure A) shouts abuse at the non-league player (figure B). But this time the fan has cleverly positioned himself behind a fan in a wheelchair (figure C).

The player, when he hears the abuse, turns and assumes it is the fan who is in the wheelchair (Figure C) who is responsible...

...and, successfully deceived, he reacts as he did in Example One. He brains the fan in the wheelchair. However this leaves figure A unscathed, and affords him/her the chance to retreat to a safe distance and purchase a burger from the snack bar having suffered no physical injury.

One popular online dictionary defines the word ‘stadium’ thus: Stadium (noun) - a place where people watch sports or other activities, usually a large enclosed flat area surrounded by tiers of seats for spectators.

There are three obvious problems when attempting to apply this term to the grounds where non-league football teams play football. ‘Spectators’, for instance, suggests a practically non-existent plurality. Seasoned non-league veterans will scoff at such nonsense.

'Enclosed flat area' is a problem because practically no Northern Premier League grounds could be described as either enclosed or flat, let alone both.

And non-league veterans will also be puzzled by the notion that football grounds can boast ‘tiers’ and, indeed, such curious objects as ‘seats’.

The reality is that, in most instances, non-league football grounds suffer from the same chronic underinvestment as the average secondary school or NHS hospital. And, just like British schools and hospitals, many grounds are plagued by unprovoked violence, infectious disease and sexual harassment claims too.

Using floodlights as a navigational tool
In the Football League, finding your way to a football ground is a relatively straightforward task. Signs for ‘Football traffic’ or ‘Matchday Parking’ are often situated on busy ring roads or motorway junctions, directing you seamlessly to your intended destination – an out-of-town plastic bowl - three hours from the nearest public house but a mere six metres from Nandos.

Below the professional ranks, however, it is an entirely different story. There is no Nandos. Whisper it quietly, but there might not even be a KFC. That’s how small these towns are. Put simply, many of the grounds you visit will routinely attract more rats than supporters, despite sitting on land in the middle of town – land long since earmarked by property developers for property development. And since the vast majority of non-league fans live within walking distance of the ground – a sad reflection of the standard of living enjoyed by the average non-league football fan – an unfamiliar visitor can find it extremely difficult to find their way to the game.

The golden rule here is: do not ask the locals. This cannot be stressed enough. impsTALK cannot assume any liability for the consequences if you choose to pull up alongside a local in a non-league town, cheerily wind down your window and ask for directions. Experts strongly advise you use your central locking at all times while circumnavigating the narrow streets of places such as Ilkeston and Goole lest a glue-sniffing malcontent attempts to steal your car and eat your children before he goes to the game.

Before you enter the town, or village, find an elevated position. Perhaps you can stand atop a pile of rubble that was once the town’s thriving industry hub. Perhaps there is a slag heap. If you are lucky, there could even be a derelict mill. Once in position, scan the horizon for the tell-tale signs of a non-league football ground. But what are you looking for? The simple answer is: floodlights! Merely locate the tell-tale pylons, note their position and run back to your car before that lad has finished jacking it up.