Thoughts turn to the intrepid bunch of farmers, yokelling up to Oldham this evening to cheer on Yeovil‘s Glovers at Boundary Park. Oldham in the 5th round of the cup but without a manager and heading for the relegation zone look easy prey for the mighty Yeo under Napoleonic supremo Sir Gary Johnson. Hats off to our brave lads in the arctic north (photo courtesy of www.ciderspace.co.uk )

But to less pressing matters.

The first few stagings of auto-enrolment have “trophy”- Champions League stuff. Unreal quality played out in front of a nation agog. Morrisons with their DA delight, M & S with the gorgeous pouting JPW and the Pensions Regulator with their ridiculously reported opt-out rate!

The remaining stagings will be played out in less and less glamorous circumstances. What happens at Boundary Park will look like a walk in one compared to a review on non-league games tonight and so will the stagings of the SMEs and micros that will get no press coverage nor the £1m+ staging budgets (reported by Lloyds Bank).

But to the fans of Altrincham or Weymouth or Shaftesbury (random picks), be they only a handful, the result they look for at 5pm on a Saturday will be that for their team – that their focus

So the SMEs will care for themselves, their staff and their pensions and they will expect to get the same support and access to the same quality of pension as the premier league pension schemes.

Which is where it is about to all fall down. Because there is not a “non-league” pension structure or even a lower league pension structure.

We need to get our skates on (literally if we are going to Oldham) and start building means by which small companies can stage properly.

The people at these companies are every bit as important as the people devising and implementing the policy and we cannot let them down.

Nor should we let Yeovil down (or even the doom laden Oldham Athletic).

Related articles

• Oldham chairman would love Paul Scholes to manage club but admits Ian Dowie is more likely (telegraph.co.uk)
• Oldham Athletic part company with manager Paul Dickov (manchestereveningnews.co.uk)
• VIDEO: Dickov ‘under pressure at Oldham’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Oldham Athletic v Liverpool: Squad sheets (guardian.co.uk)