Simon Parker column

There was no glossy 80-page brochure or a swanky press launch with Wembley providing the background eye candy.

And, not too surprisingly, there was no mention from the commentators when it fluttered in the eyeline of the TV cameras.

But the hand-written message scrawled on a bed sheet spoke for far more than just the author with the marker pen.

“Orient fans say NO to League 3” – seven words spotted at their play-off game with Peterborough that summed up the mood of a football nation. Well, outside the closeted luxury of the top half a dozen clubs in the land.

Of course, the likes of Leyton Orient do not appear on their radar. Trifling events like promotion are something for the great unwashed of the lower divisions to fuss over.

This is the land where only money talks; not grubby linen draped over an advertising board.

Here, they pat themselves on the back for attracting £1.5billion in broadcasting commercial revenue to be shared among the 20 clubs of the Premier League.

The other 72? Who are they? Exactly.

But the Football League does matter – for millions of people.

According to figures recently published by UEFA, the Championship is the fourth most-watched in Europe.

League One, with Valley Parade its third highest contributor, is the tenth and beats the top divisions in Russia and Ukraine.

In fact, more fans turn up for England’s fourth tier than the Belgium Pro League or the Primeira Liga in Portugal.

“Real football, real fans” is the tagline on the Football League’s own website. There is nothing artificial or manufactured about their 125-year existence.

This proud football pyramid has been shaken since Greg Dyke dropped his FA bombshell ten days ago.

Dyke’s commission into the current situation of the England national team – and they’ve hardly been pulling up trees in the past 40 years – came up with four bullet points. The one about creating an extra tier was more like the shell of a howitzer.

The explosion of anger against this suggestion of adding selected B teams into the league has sent the report’s top brass running for the bomb shelter.

A Grimsby fan immediately set up a petition – and within four days, the signatures had roared past 30,000. A Twitter site @againstleague3 has become the popular hub for fans to voice their frustration.

It has been hammered from pillar to post within the game. Well, from outside the posh seats in Premier class anyway.

For them, of course, the rest of the game is just there to serve.

Like an exclusive West London gentlemen’s club, you can imagine the well-heeled patrons sinking into the well-upholstered Chesterfields (don’t they have a football club? Apparently ...), ordering another single malt and nodding sagely at the suggestions of messrs Hodgson, Hoddle and Wilkinson.

Stick the reserves in with the riff raff? Jolly good plan that, dear boy, now pass me that copy of the Financial Times to check the share prices ...

Meanwhile, the real world outside vents its fury at the need to shake-up a time-honoured system for the sake of something that is nothing to do with 99.9 per cent of them.

“Me, me and me,” was Peterborough’s outspoken owner Darragh MacAnthony’s neat appraisal of the Premier League-centric thinking.

Danny Mills, who was also on the commission, proved how out of touch some players can be with those in the stands when he claimed that fans of Hartlepool would rather watch Man United B than Torquay.

The League Two club immediately called his bluff by launching a Twitter poll – and Torquay just edged it by a narrow 2,800-158.

Last week, I covered a play-off final between Altrincham and Guiseley for the prize of a place in the Conference. The ground was rammed with more than 4,500 fans to watch a game in the sixth level of the game.

Inevitably, Dyke’s proposal was a talking point at the tea bar. To paraphrase/clean up what was being spluttered between mouthfuls of hot dog, the overwhelming consensus was that it would make no difference to England whatsoever.

Like the rest of us, these fans will support their country passionately from afar in the World Cup this summer. But their number one allegiance is with their local club, the one they have followed as a birth-right.

For the likes of Altrincham, a place in the Football League is the ultimate dream; something that those supporters live in hope of one day seeing become a reality.

The spontaneous scenes of jubilation that followed the extra-time winner as they moved one step nearer underlined that belief. One more promotion, just one more promotion to reach the Promised Land ...

Only, under Dyke’s scheme, top-flight reserve teams will be parachuted into an extra division. Teams like Altrincham would have to progress through an additional level, where they could have the privilege of being regularly thumped by Stoke City B.

But never mind, the FA will tell them, just lay back and think of England. Such one-sided whippings would be for the benefit of our brave World Cup boys.

At the launch of his document, Dyke was asked if it simply “comes down to money and power”.

“Doesn’t it always?” came the predictable reply.

The Football League deserve much better than such a flippant dismissal.

The “real fans” that live and breathe clubs well removed from the elite have a powerful voice. They deserve to be heard.

More power to the people and the London linen.