Inaugural 2002/2003 Season
The season ended in exhilarating (and some say controversial) style with the Bristol Panthers becoming the first GNL Champions, after defeating Leftfooters FC 16-0. Bristol needed to win the match by 13 clear goals to grasp the championship, and rumours consumed the league that Bristol had fielded 'ringers' to ensure the result.
As the league does not register players this rumour was impossible to prove, and the Bristol teamsheet for the Leftfooters match was broadly similar to previous games in the season. However, there is now a strong sense amongst the competing teams that the fielding of "ringers" should be avoided, and all players must subscribe to the ethos of the league. In reality, it's almost impossible to regulate this philosophy and is reliant on the goodwill of the clubs.
Read more about this topic: GFSN National League
Famous quotes containing the word season:
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)