ByDaniel Austin. BBC Sport senior journalist. Standing pitchside at a muddy Lancastrian playing field is a football fan excitedly applying the finishing touches to an enormous, time-worn scrapbook.. The notes he is making mark the culmination of a five-decade-long odyssey.. When a 17-year-old Tony Incenzo visited the last of the 92 grounds in the Football League in 1981, he became the youngest person to complete a sporting pilgrimage that hardcore fans across the country can take a lifetime to accomplish.. But rather than stopping there and choosing just to follow his beloved Queens Park Rangers, Tony set himself a new goal – to visit every single ground in the English non-league system, spanning hundreds upon hundreds of clubs in every corner of the country.. And when Fulwood Amateurs kicked off at home against Thornton Cleveleys in the North West Counties First Division North on Easter Monday, 54 years after his first non-league match, Tony’s epic quest was complete.. Stamps and signatures from every home club Tony has visited line the pages of his precious scrapbook, a behemoth record of the ultimate football groundhopping adventure.. Fulwood’s entry now sits on its own fresh page, his teenage dream finally realised.. “It’s just overwhelming emotion”, Tony says, following a guard of honour given to him by both sets of players.. “To finally do it, on a glorious sunny day, with a lovely green pitch, is a great relief.”. The non-league system comprises steps five to 10 of English football and all leagues bar the top division – the National League – are regional.. The system has undergone multiple revamps since Tony began his adventure but is now made up of 996 clubs spread across 48 divisions.. Some of those clubs are fully professional and draw home crowds of thousands, but many are amateurs playing in municipal parks with no stands and crowds made up mostly of family members and passing dog walkers.. Adding in clubs who have since dropped out of the system, or dissolved entirely, Tony has watched football at over 2,000 non-league grounds.. “I get as much enjoyment from going to humble non-league clubs as I do big showpiece games,” Tony, now 62, says.. “You can turn up at a non-league game 10 minutes before kick-off, park outside, pay your admission, stroll around the ground, stand wherever you want, buy food and drink – and probably have change from about £15.. “I’ve been to places that I would never ever visit if it wasn’t for football – lovely little villages in Devon, remote seaside spots up in the North East and so on.. “It’s just great fun to travel all around the country and meet the people – people are what make a football trip special.”. [embedded content]. It is not just non-league football that Tony has a passion for – he has also watched matches at all 92 stadiums in the top five tiers of English football, at all 42 in Scotland’s four professional divisions and at many others across Europe and around the world.. And, if that wasn’t
