00:00I also spoke to sports journalist Kevin Campbell. He's the owner of Niche Football Journalism.
00:06It's like the revival of the grassroots game in China is really catching the attention of the people worldwide nowadays, especially in the country of China.
00:15It's like the carnival atmosphere, I think, has a lot to be said for the competition itself.
00:22It brings thousands of people together. Some atmospheres you're not going to see at professional football games,
00:28especially in the top three divisions of China.
00:30So it's a bit... It's not just the football. It's the community coming together, I think, which is growing the sport as a whole, really.
00:37Yeah. It's beautiful to see, actually.
00:40So there's a whole festival around this football league, and it sounds like it's a cultural event and a mixture of hometown pride.
00:51How good is the football?
00:52The football is actually... Well, when I actually come across it, it was a better standard than I was expecting,
00:59because it is amateur football, and when people say amateur football, sometimes it's like, oh, people down the park.
01:08But this is a completely different level. They've got some really good players there.
01:12Some players I wouldn't actually be surprised, being tempted by the lower leagues or the professional game in China.
01:18How much potential for growth is there in this very informal but spirit-filled grassroots football?
01:29Honestly, I think the room for growth is astronomical in this.
01:34It's got thousands of people already going.
01:36You don't hear of that unless you are at organised professional sports.
01:41You see the Super League, thousands upon thousands are going in the attendances, up to 60,000.
01:46But even in this amateur thing, you're getting 10,000, 20,000, 30,000 people going to that.
01:52It's just... I think people enjoy the informality of it.
01:55And I think that will continue to bring people together, bring people to the event, people from all over China,
02:02and even the world, just to have an insight of what is happening over there.
02:07So my understanding is it started 13 cities in Jiangsu province.
02:12Do you think that this could become a nationwide tournament of cities across the country?
02:21Absolutely. I think that with the success it's already had, I think that would be the next step.
02:27Whether or not they'd be doing similar things in each individual city
02:32and then coming together at the end of the season, like a play-off or a championship
02:38where the best team from each province comes together, like they do in some countries in Europe.
02:45That might be the way forward.
02:46But because it's so successful now in the Jiangsu region,
02:50I can't see why it wouldn't be successful in any other region than China.
02:53Talk to me about, you know, obviously you're going to have your fans in the stadium watching it,
02:58but how big an online following is there for this non-professional league?
03:04It's absolutely huge.
03:05I, for one, couldn't believe it when I stumbled across it.
03:09I think the size of social media and the online platform people have access to nowadays
03:15is just going to help and help all these amateur events, all these unique events,
03:22just grow further and further.
03:23People are going to take time out of their way, time out of their day,
03:27to go online and have a look at these things.
03:29Because it's not just the football, it's just interesting to find the background
03:33of all the people involved in this as well.
03:35And you know what we see when someone becomes a football star,
03:39that they had dreams as a little child of becoming a world-famous football player.
03:45Do you think that's how this grassroots movement is going to grow
03:48into more professional players in China?
03:51Absolutely, yeah.
03:54I think it's unique, very unique, compared to other places.
03:59I'm from the UK, I'm from the European descendancy.
04:02But when we have our amateur football, we go along with the people we play with,
04:08we have very minimal crowds because it's amateur football.
04:11And we'll get up to, in our big, big amateur games, we'll get a few hundred people.
04:16But they're already getting thousands upon thousands at these Jiangsu City games.
04:21So the experience of playing in front of a crowd at such a level
04:26can only benefit the players in the long term
04:30when they, hopefully, do progress to a bigger team
04:33and they are playing in front of those crowds regularly.
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